Makedonas

I said other than athletics, swimming etc. Do you think more people around the world really watch sailing, shooting, canoeing, handball/water polo group stage matches (outside of the two countries playing, cycling, equestrian than tennis during the Olympics?

Too bad, Middelkoop is dating our Greek player Valentini Grammatikopoulou

I'm sure more people watch tennis in the Olympics than most other sports. The Olympics are not just athletics and swimming. A lot of other sports probably get a small % of viewers compared to tennis.

No, that's not what I meant. The rule (at least until 2016) was that each NOC is allowed no more than 6 tennis players per gender. And only 2 doubles specialists per gender. So Bertens can play singles and play doubles with Schuurs no problem. The Dutch will have a problem on the men's side (assuming these rules are still applicable) because they have 0 singles players and 4 doubles players, but they are only allowed 2 doubles-only players per gender. Hope that explains it better.

I don't think it's fair to people who care. For example a Greek tennis player would never give up their spot like that.

I think also because some of them know they have zero chance to win medals. With the women it's different because it's more open and there aren't clear favourites and we always see surprise results for the women.

I agree, it takes an opportunity away from a biological woman. So sad and unfair! Why won't the feminists speak out about this?!

So incredible for Evangelia Psarra to make it once again! She is going to her sixth Olympics! Only two other Greeks have also gone to six Olympics (one in sailing and one in shooting). In a sport where Greece is basically nonexistent, she has been flying our flag for two decades. Really proud of her. I didn't expect her to make it this time but so happy she did. She is 47 years old and made her Olympic debut in Sydney when she was 26 and never missed the Olympics since. I think she said that if she makes it to Tokyo this will be the last time for her. What a nice story.

I think the women's doubles medalists can be France (Garcia/Mladenovic), Belarus (Azarenka/Sabalenka) and Czechia (Krejcikova/Siniakova)

I thought the rule was that only two players who aren't playing singles can play doubles for each NOC?

@George_D Hopefully Calathes and Papagiannis being added to the team will be good additions, and hopefully Printezis' injury is not bad and he'll be able to play.

We lost to Italy by only 10 points. Honestly it should've been closer but at the end we kept fouling them when it was obvious that the game was over (we needed to win by +15 anyways in order to advance), thus allowing them to increase the margin on free throws. Yeah, Italy actually made their free throws (19/22) unlike us (10/17)... Once again Nikolopoulou plays for 35+ minutes. For absolutely no reason. Once again she was totally useless. For an "experienced" player, she has zero basketball IQ. She's actually so bad. She must have a great agent because I have no idea how she gets so much playing time when we have other guards who are better and younger. Like Pavlopoulou, who only played 12 minutes today...and it would've been nice to see Tsineke play more than 3 minutes, especially since she scored twice during her limited time. I'm happy that Stamolamprou at least got to play (she was injured and missed our last game) and showed that as a guard she belongs in the starting lineup. She scored 23 points and played an unbelievable game. 17 yo Bosgana finally got a lot of playing time and she did very well, great defensively and also scored 13 points. Shame she missed a bunch of free throws but really happy she played a lot as I had been asking for that the past few days. Too little too late for now but a very positive sign for the future. And Spanou playing 37 minutes today. I have no words. I used to defend her when others would criticize her but really she is not that good and we need to stop trusting her so much. She had 10 turnovers today! Almost as many as the whole Italian team combined. Like Nikolopoulou, she's another "experienced" player with zero basketball IQ. I can't wait for the starting lineup one day to include two of Stamolamprou, Pavlopoulou, Tsineke as guards, Christinaki SF, Bosgana PF and Fasoula C. That will be such a great team but unfortunately for now our coach insists on Nikolopoulou and Spanou starting every game. I still think we can make Paris 2024. All these young girls will be two years older during Eurobasket 2023, and with Christinaki and Spyridopoulou back from injury we can dream big.

Nice for the young Kynigakis to step up and fill Gianniotis' shoes

Women's High Jump Salome Lang - 1.96 https://cluj-napoca21results.european-athletics.com/en/results/athletics/result-women-s-high-jump-fnl-000100-.htm

She wasn't close to qualifying via ranking even before yesterday. She was always going to have to make the Olympic standard.

Not sure why I thought Canada didn't make it

You can always support Anneta Kyridou in the women's single sculls (I don't think Canada is participating in this event either). She has faced so many hardships and yet she still qualified for the Games. She might not win a medal but I am looking forward to supporting her after she overcame years of physical and psychological abuse from coaches (which she made public and created a scandal in Greece), changed categories three times in the last two years because her partners kept getting injured, all while her single mother was battling cancer and the federation was fighting against her and her mother during all of this. Still just 22 years old which is young for rowing, especially for an event like single sculls so maybe in the future it will be more likely that she wins an Olympic medal Anyways, I hope this was enough to sell her story to you

Well the Bucks just won so there goes any chance of having Giannis or Thanasis at the OQT. We are a mess, all of our good forwards will be missing except Mitoglou. Papanikolaou and Papapetrou both injured, and now it looks like Printezis is injured too. Such a disgrace that a big basketball nation like Greece hasn't qualified since 2008. 2012 was the biggest joke ever, we had a good roster and totally choked (even though Spanoulis got fouled on that 3 at the buzzer which wasn't called). 2016 we were plagued with injuries and now 2020 is like 2016 all over again... Our national teams in basketball and water polo especially just love to underachieve

So many people picked Greece to qualify in women's water polo, women's basketball, and men's basketball and it looks like we'll get none of them in the end (Yes we got men's water polo at least)

When is the first realistic medal chance of the Games for your nation? Day 2-Anna Korakaki in the women's 10m air pistol. She won bronze in it last time, is the current world champion and also won medals at the 2019 and 2020 European Championships in that event, so why not another medal? Of course shooting is unpredictable but I think she's the first realistic chance. Not saying she will win one. When do you think your nation will get their first medal and in which event? Day 7-Anna Korakaki in the women's 25m pistol. She won gold last time. We also have the men's single sculls final in rowing on Day 7 and I think Stefanos Ntouskos has good chance to win a medal. So between Korakaki and Ntouskos, I think at least one of them will win a medal on Day 7. Also on Day 7 we could have finals in the women's single sculls (Anneta Kyridou) and men's 200 IM (Andreas Vazaios) but those two are much less likely to win medals than Korakaki and Ntouskos in my opinion. Is there a bumper day for your nation where you expect more than one or a few medals to come? If so, what day? Day 7 as I mentioned, and also Day 10 (Petrounias in the men's rings - if he qualifies, and Tentoglou in the men's long jump). There are a few others like Day 9 and Day 13, but Day 7 and Day 10 are better chances. Is there a day when you expect to have not so much competitors from your nation competing or no chances for medals? Day 1 for sure we won't win medals, also Day 15 and Day 16 we won't unless our men's basketball and water polo teams make it that far. Days 4, 5, 6, and 11 are also very unlikely but we have small chances those days.

Men's water polo would be nice. We've qualified for 11 consecutive Olympics and still never won a medal. Best was 4th place in 2004. We were 6th in Rio. I think it would be a bit surprising if we won a medal this year which would make it fun. Also we got two World Championships bronze medals (2005 and 2015) so it's a bit disappointing that we haven't been able to be successful like that in the Olympics. Stefanos Tsitsipas/Maria Sakkari. Any medal in tennis from either (or both) would be really cool. Byron Kokkalanis (sailing). He was 6th in London and 5th in Rio. I really want him to win a medal and he's 35 yo so this is probably his last chance, especially since we have good young sailors in the same event that might surpass him even if he sticks around another three years. I really hope Tokyo 2020 can be his Gianniotis Rio 2016 moment. Paraskevi Papachristou (triple jump) and Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou (pole vault). Both are mothers which is a nice story. Both also won a lot of World/European Championships medals but never Olympics and both are in their 30s now. Papachristou I think will have one more chance in Paris but I don't think Kyriakopoulou will still be around. I really like both of them too. For example I like them more than Stefanidi (nothing personal against her, I just prefer these two). Also I feel Papachristou was unfairly treated when they kicked her out of London 2012, so this would be the biggest revenge to her haters if she wins a medal here. Any of our three boats in rowing. One of my favourite sports and all of our rowers here are very young (the oldest is 24) and we have a lot of problems in rowing. I think a youngster winning an Olympic medal would really help the situation and maybe attract some more sponsors. Of course any medal would be fun but these are probably the ones I want to see the most. I only included people/teams that have some chances to win. For example I'd love for us to win a medal in a track event, but that's obviously not going to happen so I didn't include it. I also excluded others who already won medals (Stefanidi, Petrounias, Korakaki, Tsoulfa, Mantis, Kagialis) and some which are more expected (Tentoglou). I'd also like to say men's basketball but I'll wait to see if they even qualify first.

I have a few: women's water polo (I'm sure everyone on this website secretly wants them to break the 4th place curse) Simona Halep - tennis (I love to watch her play and I know it is so important for her) Zorana Arunovic - shooting (For the amazing career she's had, it is crazy that she never won any Olympic medal) Novak Djokovic - tennis (It is crazy that in his career so far he only won one bronze. Of course I want Tsitsipas to win gold but I'd also like to see Djokovic win silver or bronze ) Darya Klishina - long jump (I always wanted her to win an Olympic medal) Mariya Lasitskene - high jump (She deserves an Olympic medal in her career) Kendra Harrison - 100 hurdles (I thought she was so unlucky in 2016 that she missed the Olympics despite breaking the world record a few weeks prior) Helen Maroulis - wrestling (Of course she is half Greek, and she was going to compete for us after not being selected for London but there were some delays in her paperwork, anyways she won gold for USA in 2016 and they named the main square after her of the town in Greece where her grandparents live) Alex Kesidis - wrestling (He is also Greek and actually his brother competes for Greece and was in the qualifying tournaments but didn't make it to Tokyo) Orlando Ortega - 110 hurdles (His coach is Greek) women's basketball (Their coach is Greek. She was born in Canada but her parents are Greek and she used to play professionally in Greece so she is quite well known in Greek basketball)

Are we sure that Badosa and Tig will not play? I think they are relaxing the Fed Cup restrictions for players like them who rose up a lot in the last year or two and didn't have many chances to play Fed Cup. It's completely fair too. Do you really think Spain was going to choose Badosa in 2017, 2018, or 2019 for Fed Cup when they had other better players? Same with Romania and Tig. Karatsev for example was originally listed as not eligible (due to the same reasons) on Wikipedia until a Russian source confirmed that he will play. So, I think we should know that there are some mistakes on Wikipedia regarding player eligibility. Gauff is another example of someone who is listed as eligible even though she technically doesn't meet the requirements. So I think they will also make these exceptions for players like Badosa and Tig (Sebastian Korda also for example). Now others like Hercog and Martic are people they should not make exceptions for. Also sorry if I am not doing a good job trying to explain this. English is not my first language.

I thought they only counted once, but in the rankings they are counted twice for many athletes. However, they are not held in the "same year" so maybe that's why? Because some have national championships from both 2019 and 2021 in their rankings

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/long-jumper-manyonga-gets-four-year-ban-anti-doping-violation-2021-06-18/ Sorry if this was already said. I haven't seen anything here. The stars are really aligning for Tentoglou to win a medal in Tokyo...