Makedonas

1. What were the top 3 close qualification misses (team/individual) which you regret ? Definitely Maria Prevolaraki in women's wrestling 53kg. She won multiple World Championships medals in her career, but never an Olympic medal despite qualifying 3x. This would've been her 4th and final Olympics. She was 1 win away from the Olympic quota I believe 4 times throughout this qualifying cycle and lost each time. I guess the women's artistic swimming team is another one, they were always going to be 50/50 but they qualified in Tokyo which was our first time in the team event since 2004, and multiple girls tested positive for Covid so they never got the chance to compete. The third one I'll say Despina Georgiadou who is ranked 4 in women's sabre fencing but can't go because Greece already has another qualified individual and didn't qualify in the team, or if that doesn't count then I'll say our archer Evangelia Psarra who qualified 6 times in a row and this was her first time missing and also the first time since 1996 that Greece won't be represented in archery. I'm hoping our men's basketball team won't also fall into this category, as well as a bunch of our athletes in athletics who are very borderline via ranking and it will come down to the wire... Also it's our first time since 1956 not qualifying in weightlifting, but that was unfortunately quite expected due to the quota/event reduction. Lastly, we had 4 good young athletes in Tokyo who I thought would maybe be able to win medals in Paris but for various reasons they are no longer competing or are competing for other countries. They are Vasileia Karachaliou (sailing), Giorgos Pilidis (wrestling), and the Kyridou sisters (rowing). Okay, that was definitely more than just "top 3" I'm not going to answer the other questions because my reply would be too long , but I'm overall quite happy that most of the events I care about will be during the first week or at night during the second week, as I will be on holidays during the second week and plan on being at the beach during the daytime Also I see the other two Greek members voted "Yes, quite satisfied" but I voted "Not exactly, but it's fine"

With all due respect I think this is extremely optimistic. It is extremely unlikely (98% I'd say) that you will qualify for LA in women's water polo...

Hungary still won the medal table but we were second, honestly the future of Greek swimming looks good. The likes of Christou and Gkolomeev won't be around forever, but I think they'll stick around until 2028, and some of our youngsters like Siskos, Makrygiannis, Papastamos, Bilas, Markos, Damasioti, etc. were very impressive here, and now it was announced that our 15 yo breaststroke talent Ntoumas will be going to Paris on one of the relay teams And finally our women's swimming team (which has gone really downhill since London and especially since Rio), seems to be slowly on the rise again, with many other young talents like Pyrili, Angelaki, Vasilaki, Rakopoulou. Hopefully more to come as well.

Incredible for us to have two 1-2 finishes within 5 minutes Overall a great Championships for us, with 17 total medals, we had previously never won more than 6 (and the last two editions for example we only won 3 medals each time). Yes, many of the big names were missing, but I still think we would've probably had our best European Championships regardless, some of our swimmers did great with huge PRs and NRs Also we got 3 new quotas for Paris here in Belgrade. We should have several swimmers make finals in Paris, and hopefully someone can sneak a medal, which would be our first ever Olympic medal in the pool (we've only won in open water).

Big NR for her and quota for the Olympics, so in her 4th Olympics she will compete in an individual event now and not just a relay like she did in Tokyo, incredible for her to be improving at age 32 after being around for so many years and she seemed like she was finished not too long ago Also great for her to win a second medal here after never having a European Championships medal, and this time in an Olympic category, and honestly with that time she would've won a medal in 2022 anyways so it's not like she just got 'lucky' that some big names were missing this year!

2024 European Championships: GOLD: Stergios Bilas - Men's 50m butterfly Apostolos Christou - Men's 50m backstroke Apostolos Christou - Men's 100m backstroke Kristian Gkolomeev - Men's 50m freestyle Apostolos Papastamos - Men's 400m individual medley SILVER: Stergios Bilas - Men's 50m freestyle Georgia Damasioti - Women's 100m butterfly Theodora Drakou - Women's 50m backstroke Theodora Drakou - Women's 50m freestyle Evangelos Makrygiannis - Men's 100m backstroke Dimitrios Markos - Men's 400m freestyle Dimitrios Markos - Men's 800m freestyle Apostolos Siskos - Men's 200m backstroke BRONZE: Greece - Men's 4x100m freestyle relay (Stergios Bilas, Apostolos Christou, Kristian Gkolomeev, Andreas Vazaios, Evangelos Makrygiannis, Odysseas Meladinis) Greece - Men's 4x200m freestyle relay (Konstantinos Englezakis, Dimitrios Markos, Konstantinos Stamou, Andreas Vazaios) Evangelos Makrygiannis - Men's 50m backstroke Anna Ntountounaki - Women's 50m butterfly

Pesiridou 13.07 in Madrid, she won the B Final but was 6th overall, so she'll barely gain points for her ranking. However, Adamopoulou was 1st with 4.50 and will probably move into a qualifying position or very close to it, same with Scarvelis who had 69.52 in the women's hammer and was 6th.

Swimming +1 Georgia Damasioti (women's 100m butterfly)

DAMASIOTI 57.74, SILVER MEDAL AND QUALIFIED FOR PARIS 2024!

Sloukas now also out due to "injury" Like Papapetrou, he was fine last week in the Greek finals but suddenly is injured and can't compete with the national team. I'm sure 1 or 2 more players will withdraw before the qualifying tournament and we won't make it to the Olympics once again

In the semifinal of the men's 200 freestyle we saw another NR from Markos However the focus is on the women's 100 butterfly where we have two girls who made the final, Anna Ntountounaki who is always there and won gold in the past, and our newcomer Georgia Damasioti. Damasioti came to Belgrade with a PR of 58.76 and in the heats got 58.54, then 58.00 in the semifinals , so she is very very close to the magic number 57.92 for OQT. I really hope she can get it in the final (she will be in a middle lane) because OST means nothing for her since we have Ntountounaki already with OQT (ironically this is the only women's race where Greece has OQT already).

So, so happy for Drakou! She is 32 yo, so many times at the European Championships she finished 4th or 5th, she said all year this was her goal to win a medal as it was the last thing missing from her career in her opinion. Finally she did it! She will probably retire after Paris based on what she's said this year, and I think the timing will be good. I hope she enjoys her 4th and final Olympics where she will only be competing in a relay unless she gets an invitation for an individual event. She's been great for Greek women's swimming the last 12 years or so! Also she said after the race that all night she was dreaming about winning gold, but that she made many mistakes in the race and she is thankful to God that she still won a medal despite the mistakes, and that it was a reward for her for all the times she was close in her career but didn't win a medal And nice to see us win another relay medal, they were close to NR too!

On Wednesday we had the Filothei Women Gala in Athens where they do just 5 events (100m, 100 hurdles, long jump, high jump, pole vault). Emmanouilidou won the 100m with 11.29 and I think she's pretty much guaranteed to go to Paris at this point, whether in 100m, 200m, or both. Pesiridou finished 2nd with 12.99 (+2.2) in the 100 hurdles, despite the wind assistance it was the first time since 2016 that she ran under 13 seconds. She really needed something like this to keep her Paris hopes alive so at least there's still a chance she can go. She DNF in Tokyo and actually didn't even make it to the first hurdle, so I really hope she'll get another Olympic chance as she was young and inexperienced still in Rio and will probably be too old in Los Angeles. Long jump was uneventful from a Greek perspective as was the pole vault although Adamopoulou gained some important ranking points to boost her Olympic chances. The big highlight for us was the high jump where Gusin jumped 1.94, which is her outdoor PB and equals her indoor PB which was from 2019! She seems certain now at 30 yo to qualify for the Olympics, after injuries ruined her chances for Rio and Tokyo. I really hope she doesn't get injured in the next 6 weeks so she can finally make her Olympic debut!

Yes, finally he broke Filippidis' record! He is now 5th in the world this year with this result. 3rd if you only count the outdoor season

It's a shame, this is such a rare opportunity for Albania to be in a major tournament and this is what their fans and even their players (or at least one of them) are doing?! Not to get off topic but when was the Greek island of Corfu (which they include as Albanian lands on these maps, even Dua Lipa posted it) ever inhabited by Albanians prior to Albanian migrants moving all over Greece in the 1990s after the fall of communism? This could be such a great moment for them as a country to be in a big tournament and they are really ruining it with all of this nationalism.

I thought we would add to our gold medal tally today to be honest, but 3 medals is still really good. Also we had big NRs in the two Olympic events where we won silver Siskos broke Christou's NR of 1:56.34 from last month in Thessaloniki (Siskos' previous PR was 1:56.64 from Doha 2024). He's still just 18 yo, I really hope he can do something big in Paris because I worry that he won't be as good in 2028. He is going to study in USA after Paris and often our Olympic athletes who go there end up seeing their progress stall or even decline so it's not always the best decision for everyone and we've seen many examples of it in swimming, athletics, rowing, and tennis. Markos broke his own NR of 7:49.97 from Doha 2024.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see Greece in the top 2/3 of all of these lists, but it is strange that Cyprus is so low when they basically eat standard Greek food plus a few of their own dishes that we don't have.

I think a lot of people here clearly are in denial about Greece becoming the new power of European swimming, so they make ridiculous comments to diminish the prestige of these European Championships

Also this one seems like AI before it was a thing

@Olympian1010 I prefer this one:

2024 European Championship Shotgun: SILVER: Emmanouela Katzouraki and Efthimios Mitas (Skeet Mixed Team) BRONZE: Panagiotis Gerochristos (Skeet Men Junior)

Swimming +1 Apostolos Papastamos (men's 400m individual medley)

Really happy for Papastamos! His previous PR was from 2019 as an 18 yo when he won gold at the World Junior Championships with 4:11.93, which was also our men's NR and a world junior record at the time. He struggled a lot with injuries after that and today out of nowhere after 5 years a new PR/NR of 4:10.83! Qualified for Paris too! After Tokyo I thought he could be a medal chance for us in Paris but things didn't go as planned and 10 hours ago it looked like he wouldn't even qualify for Paris, now I think maybe he can at least make the final but let's see, hopefully he hasn't peaked too soon. Also Giourtzidis 4th in this event with a big PR as well. Good for Greek swimming. And our men's 4 x 200 free relay winning bronze with the second fastest time in Greek history, NR is 7:09.10 from the same group of guys in Doha this year.

We are first in the medal table after Day 1! Stop the count!