Makedonas

Second year in the league and second year winning the Super Bowl for former  national water polo player George Karlaftis 

Sailing (2)
Byron Kokkalanis (men's IQFoil)
Cameron Maramenidis (men's formula kite)

where the hell is Slokavia and why they use our flag ?
 
 
 

Finally we got quotas in sailing! 
 
We were in danger of missing out for the first time since 1936, after we had 8 sailors in Tokyo. Now we have 2 confirmed here, and should get another 2 in the 470 mixed.
 
I'm happy for Maramenidis to make his Olympic debut. I'm glad we got the quota in iQFoil and Kokkalanis will go to the Olympics for the 4th time, though I am sad for Tsortanidis who I wanted to see take the quota, he is from a small island and it would've been nice to see him go to the Olympics from there, also Kokkalanis is old and had his chances for a medal in the past and didn't take them.
 
Of course Tsortanidis also finished this regatta in a qualifying position but there's only one quota per nation. It's too bad that he has to miss out when there are other boat classes where we did not qualify anyone.
 
And the 470 quota with Spanaki/Spanaki looks 99% confirmed. I'm happy for Spanaki, she proved her critics (aka me ) wrong after accusing her of stealing the Tokyo quota from a more deserving team (she came out of nowhere and got a 2004 Olympic gold medalist out of retirement and together they won our internal regatta over Bozi/Klonaridou who were our only competitive 470 duo from Rio 2016 until a few months before Tokyo).
 
 
 
Also it's a shame Papadakos is 5th in the ILCA 7 and will miss Paris, after our sailing federation messed up and prevented him from getting the quota a few months ago. He is young so hopefully he can make it to LA and/or Brisbane instead.

So it looks like our sailing team will go down from 8 members in Tokyo to 4 in Paris. It seems bad, but actually is not so bad when you look at it.
 
470 became mixed, so instead of 4 sailors we only had the chance to qualify 2, which we did (so -2 overall)
 
RS:X became iQFoil and we still got the men's quota but not women's, after the change of categories (-3 overall)
 
Karachaliou in ILCA 6 had a lot of drama with our sailing federation and got the quota for Portugal but won't be going to Paris regardless it seems (-4 overall)
 
The finn is no longer an Olympic category which caused Mitakis to retire after three consecutive Olympic qualifications (-5 overall)
 
Maramenidis got the quota in men's kite, which is +1 for us (-4 overall)
 
 
 
Our sailing federation is lucky they can use the above as excuses for the small amount of quotas even if it still is a low point for Greek sailing. Also I sort of thought the Mixed Nacra team would have a good chance (I think they missed out by 1 spot for Tokyo but don't quote me on that, it was definitely close), especially with Papadopoulou being a bit older/more experienced now, but they still missed out by a few spots.
 
The biggest missed opportunities though were definitely ILCA 6 (Karachaliou leaving us), and ILCA 7 (multiple good young prospects who came close but no one took a quota).
 
Also if you include Tsortanidis instead of Kokkalanis, we have all 4 of our quota athletes being in their early 20s, so I'm optimistic that Greek sailing can rise again.

Finally we got quotas in sailing! 
 
We were in danger of missing out for the first time since 1936, after we had 8 sailors in Tokyo. Now we have 2 confirmed here, and should get another 2 in the 470 mixed.
 
I'm happy for Maramenidis to make his Olympic debut. I'm glad we got the quota in iQFoil and Kokkalanis will go to the Olympics for the 4th time, though I am sad for Tsortanidis who I wanted to see take the quota, he is from a small island and it would've been nice to see him go to the Olympics from there, also Kokkalanis is old and had his chances for a medal in the past and didn't take them.
 
Of course Tsortanidis also finished this regatta in a qualifying position but there's only one quota per nation. It's too bad that he has to miss out when there are other boat classes where we did not qualify anyone.
 
And the 470 quota with Spanaki/Spanaki looks 99% confirmed. I'm happy for Spanaki, she proved her critics (aka me ) wrong after accusing her of stealing the Tokyo quota from a more deserving team (she came out of nowhere and got a 2004 Olympic gold medalist out of retirement and together they won our internal regatta over Bozi/Klonaridou who were our only competitive 470 duo from Rio 2016 until a few months before Tokyo).
 
 
 
Also it's a shame Papadakos is 5th in the ILCA 7 and will miss Paris, after our sailing federation messed up and prevented him from getting the quota a few months ago. He is young so hopefully he can make it to LA and/or Brisbane instead.

Not one of the biggest Greek sports website claiming our LW2X girls are "very close to the Olympic quota" after finishing 1st in their heat at the European Championships 
 
They did change the article after several hours to erase the evidence that they thought this race had something to do with the Olympics 

Finally we got quotas in sailing! 
 
We were in danger of missing out for the first time since 1936, after we had 8 sailors in Tokyo. Now we have 2 confirmed here, and should get another 2 in the 470 mixed.
 
I'm happy for Maramenidis to make his Olympic debut. I'm glad we got the quota in iQFoil and Kokkalanis will go to the Olympics for the 4th time, though I am sad for Tsortanidis who I wanted to see take the quota, he is from a small island and it would've been nice to see him go to the Olympics from there, also Kokkalanis is old and had his chances for a medal in the past and didn't take them.
 
Of course Tsortanidis also finished this regatta in a qualifying position but there's only one quota per nation. It's too bad that he has to miss out when there are other boat classes where we did not qualify anyone.
 
And the 470 quota with Spanaki/Spanaki looks 99% confirmed. I'm happy for Spanaki, she proved her critics (aka me ) wrong after accusing her of stealing the Tokyo quota from a more deserving team (she came out of nowhere and got a 2004 Olympic gold medalist out of retirement and together they won our internal regatta over Bozi/Klonaridou who were our only competitive 470 duo from Rio 2016 until a few months before Tokyo).
 
 
 
Also it's a shame Papadakos is 5th in the ILCA 7 and will miss Paris, after our sailing federation messed up and prevented him from getting the quota a few months ago. He is young so hopefully he can make it to LA and/or Brisbane instead.

Imagine Slovakia qualify in Sailing and failing in Canoeing Sprint ... this world is really upside down lately

SAILING AT THE SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES PARIS 2024 - MEN'S IQ FOIL

 
SAILING AT THE SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES PARIS 2024 - MEN'S FORMULA KITE
 
 
 
SAILING AT THE SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES PARIS 2024 - WOMEN'S IQ FOIL
   
 
SAILING AT THE SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES PARIS 2024 - WOMEN'S FORMULA KITE
 

Men's Kite quotas for:  
 
 was 6th just one place away of the olympics :-(

I think IQFOIL finished!
 
 
MEN'S:  + ENP . There's another quota up for grabs (African reallocation) we don't know for sure who it goes to. If its ENP as I think, goes to , if not, it goes to  .
 
 
WOMEN'S: + ENP . There's another quota up for grabs (African reallocation) that goes to  either way

Looks like it’ll be no ICLA 7 Olympic quota for Canada for the first time ever. 

Men's Kite Quotas:


+ 3 from      
 
Women's Kite Quotas:


+ 3 from:     
 

Well things are somewhat looking better now, as Kokkalanis (and Tsortanidis although in the same event so we can only have one make it to Paris), and Spanaki/Spanakis are now in qualifying positions, in addition to Maramenidis.
 
Really a shame we will probably miss out on the ILCA 7 quota after Papadakos won it in February at the qualification regatta we hosted, when our federation decided to hold an extra race (despite it not being necessary) and he ended up losing the quota in that last race. Also I'm not sure why Papadimitriou isn't competing here as I thought he was our best sailor in this class but generally his results were poor lately compared to Panagiotidis and Papadakos.
 
Women's iQFoil is very disappointing but not surprising. The girls really struggled to transition from RS:X, and I really thought Divari would do better considering she qualified for Tokyo as a 20 yo.
 
Men's 49er is disappointing too. Kagialis will miss the Olympics for the first time since London, and at his age this is probably the end for him.
 
And ILCA 6, no words really on the Karachaliou situation, but it seems like she won't be able to compete for Portugal either.

You’re only 9 points outside of a quota, and there’s still 4 races to go. Don’t be so pessimistic, my buddy 

470 Olympic Quota Standings After 6/10 Races
 
 8 pts
 24 pts
 29 pts
 41 pts
 
———————
 
 46 pts
 49 pts
 50 pts
 50 pts
 56 pts
 61 pts

470 Olympic Quota Standings After 4/10 Races

 4 pts
 15 pts
 15 pts
 19 pts
 
———————
 
 26 pts
 29 pts
 30 pts
 30 pts
 30 pts
 31 pts
 35 pts

I know there were some efforts to bring diaspora Greeks together but I'm not sure what happened. I haven't heard about this in about 10 years. There were always some players with Greek origins in the NHL.
 
I just did some research and there still are:
23 yo Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks, born in New York to Greek parents
29 yo Andreas Athanasiou of the Chicago Blackhawks, born in Toronto to a Greek father and Guyanese mother
 
There's also Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who is a very successful player and already played for Canada so would not be eligible for Greece. However, his family does not even identify as Greek despite his surname and his father's side being from Florina (border town of  and , the town has a complicated history from the Greek Civil War which I will not bore you with).
 
Anyways I'm sure there are more Greeks from USA and Canada in lower levels of hockey who would be willing to play for the national team if needed. Hopefully an effort is made so we can be competitive.
 

I know there were some efforts to bring diaspora Greeks together but I'm not sure what happened. I haven't heard about this in about 10 years. There were always some players with Greek origins in the NHL.
 
I just did some research and there still are:
23 yo Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks, born in New York to Greek parents
29 yo Andreas Athanasiou of the Chicago Blackhawks, born in Toronto to a Greek father and Guyanese mother
 
There's also Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who is a very successful player and already played for Canada so would not be eligible for Greece. However, his family does not even identify as Greek despite his surname and his father's side being from Florina (border town of  and , the town has a complicated history from the Greek Civil War which I will not bore you with).
 
Anyways I'm sure there are more Greeks from USA and Canada in lower levels of hockey who would be willing to play for the national team if needed. Hopefully an effort is made so we can be competitive.
 

I know there were some efforts to bring diaspora Greeks together but I'm not sure what happened. I haven't heard about this in about 10 years. There were always some players with Greek origins in the NHL.
 
I just did some research and there still are:
23 yo Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks, born in New York to Greek parents
29 yo Andreas Athanasiou of the Chicago Blackhawks, born in Toronto to a Greek father and Guyanese mother
 
There's also Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who is a very successful player and already played for Canada so would not be eligible for Greece. However, his family does not even identify as Greek despite his surname and his father's side being from Florina (border town of  and , the town has a complicated history from the Greek Civil War which I will not bore you with).
 
Anyways I'm sure there are more Greeks from USA and Canada in lower levels of hockey who would be willing to play for the national team if needed. Hopefully an effort is made so we can be competitive.
 

Bratislava host this week the Development Cup.
 
is returning to ice hockey @Makedonas @Ted
 
 

Mens Formula Kite
 
After 5 Regattes
 
 12p
 14p
 14p
 21p
 23p
---------------
 27p
 33p
 36p
 42p
 52p
 
 
-------------------------------------
 
Womens Formula Kite
 
After 5 Regattes
 
 4p
 8p
 17p
 20p
 25p
---------------
 29p
 30p
 45p
 49p
 53p

And the winner of coolest name to pronounce goes to… 
 
 

Update. Doctors have discovered that his condition is acute pancreatitis. It was severe at first (hence him being taken on an ambulance in extreme pain) but his condition got better after time. Today, that all changed, he got worse again and was taken into another wing of the hospital. He’s expected to stay there for about a couple of weeks, maybe even longer. Really hoping he can get well soon, it’s heartbreaking to see him in his current state