Sport news about Greece, Egypt and Cyprus
Tuesday was the fourth day of the Rio 2016 Olympic games and Greece’s Anna Korakaki beat out the competition in the women’s 25 meter pistol competition to become the first Greek woman to win more than one medal in the same game.
Korakaki won 4 out of 7 series in the intense gold medal match against Germany’s Monika Karsch to win the gold medal.
The 20-year-old shooter also won Greece’s first medal at the Rio games, taking bronze in the women’s 10 meter pistol event on Sunday.
92 athletes will represent Greece in the Rio Olympics in August, according to the Hellenic Olympic Committee.
Twenty seven athletes will compete on track, while in individual sports, 15 will be in swimming, nine in gymnastics, seven in sailing and six in rowing.
Τhe Hellenic Swimming Federation has the most athletes (30), with 15 of them in swimming, two in synchronized swimming, and 13 in national men’s water polo. Three athletes will compete in cycling, two each in fencing, shooting and judo and one each in wrestling, weightlifting, archery and table tennis.
Evangelia Psarrou, at 42, is the oldest female athlete on the Greek Olympic team (born on 17.06.1974) and taking part in the Olympics for the fifth time (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012). Spyros Gianniotos is also celebrating his fifth time at the prestigious games.
For others it will be their fourth appearance at the games, those athletes include: Vlassis Maras (2004, 2008, 2012), Sofia Bekatorou (2000, 2004, 2008), Angela Skarlatou (1996, 2000, 2012), Ilias Iliadis (2004, 2008, 2012) and Panagiotis Gionis (2004, 2008, 2012).
It is worth noting that this is the first time since 1992 that Greece will have fewer than 100 athletes. In Barcelona, only 70 Greek athletes had participated. In Atlanta in 1996 there were 120, in Sydney in 2000 there were 139, in Athens 2004 there were 436 (the largest participation), in Beijing in 2008 there were 152 and in London in 2012, there were only 103.
Head of the Greek delegation will be Isidoros Kouvelos for the third consecutive time.
The 92 athletes representing Greece are:
Athletics (27)
Lycurgos Tsakonas – 200m.
Kostas Douvalidis – 110m. obstacles
Miltos Tentoglou – length
Anthony Mastoras – height
Kostas Baniotis – height
Kostas Filippides – pole vault
Nikos Skarvelis – shot put
Michael Anastassakis – hammer throw
Christoforos Merousis – Marathon
Michael Kalomoiris – Marathon
Alexander Papamichail – 20km. walking & 50km. walking
Maria Belimpasaki – 200m.
Eirini Vasiliou – 400m.
Elizabeth Pesiridou – 100m. obstacles
Alexia Pappas – 5.000m. & 10,000m.
Lili Alexoulis – length
Voula Papachristou – triplicate
Nicole Kyriakopoulou – pole vault
Katerina Stefanidis – pole vault
Chrisoula Anagnostopoulou – discus
Riga Sofia – Marathon
Rania Rempouli – Marathon
Panagiota Vlachaki – Marathon
Despina Zapounidou – 20km. walking
Antigone Drisbioti – 20km. walking
Panagiota Tsinopoulou – 20km. walking
Sofia Yfantidou – Heptathlon
Swimming (15)
Odysseas Meladinis – 50m. free
Christian Gkolomeev – 50m. free & 100m. free
Dimitris Dimitriou – 400m. free
Stefanos Dimitriadis – 200m. butterfly
Panagiotis Samilidis – 100m. breaststroke and 200m. front
Dimitris Koulouris – 200m. breaststroke
Apostolos Christou – 100m. backstroke and 200m. backstroke
Andreas Vazaios – 200m. medley
Christos Katrantzis – 4X100m. free
Nora Drakou – 50 m. free
Theodora Giareni – 50m. free
Anna Ntountounaki – 100m. butterfly
Christelle Vournas – 100m. butterfly
Spyros Gianiotis – 10km. marathon swimming
Kelly Araouzou – 10km. marathon swimming
Synchronised Swimming (2)
Evangelia Platanioti – Duet
Evelina Papazoglou – Duet
Water Polo (13)
Kostas Flegas
Stefanos Galanopoulos
Emmanouil Mylonakis
Giorgos Dervisis
Kostas Gennidounias
Ioannis Fountoulis
Kyriakos Pontikeas
Christos Afroudakis
Vangelis Delakis
Kostas Mourikis
Christodoulos Colomvos
Alexander Gounas
Angelos Vlachopoulos
Gymnastics (3)
Vlasis Maras – individual all
Lefteris Petrounias – rings
Vaso Millousi – individual all
Rhythmic gymnastics (6)
Barbara Philiou – individual all
Stavroula Samara – ensemble
Helen Doika – ensemble
Michaela Metallidou – ensemble
Joanna Anagnostopoulou – ensemble
Zoe Kontogianni – ensemble
Sailing (7)
Byron Kokkalanis – RS: X
Tzeli Skarlatou – RS: X
John Mitakis – Finn
Pavlos Kagialis – 470
Panagiotis Mantis – 470
Sofia Bekatorou – Nacra 17
Michael Pateniotis – Nacra 17
Rowing (6)
Yiannis Christou -‘s four without helmsman
George Djialas -‘s four without helmsman
Dionysios Angelopoulos -‘s four without helmsman
Yiannis Tsilis -‘s four without helmsman
Katerina Nicolaidou – double sculls
Sophia Asoumanaki – double sculls
Cycling (3)
Yiannis Tamouridis – race
Christos Volikakis – keirin
Dimitris Antoniadis – mountain biking
Fencing (2)
Vassiliki Vougiouka – saber
Katerina Kontochristopoulou – exercise sword
Shooting (2)
Efthymis Mittas – skeet
Anna Korakaki – 10m air pistol. & 25m sports pistol.
Archery (1)
Evangelia Psarrou – individual Olympic bow
Weightlifting (1)
Theodoros Iakovidis – 85t.
Wrestling (1)
Maria Prevolaraki – 53k. free
Judo (2)
Roman Moustopoulos – 81k.
Ilias Iliadis – 90K.
Table Tennis (1)
Panagiotis Gionis – single
The Greek Paralympics Committee announced the names of the 54 athletes – 41 men and 13 women – who will represent Greece in the 2016 Paralympics Games in Rio de Janeiro, which are scheduled for 7-18 September.
According to the president of the committee Giorgos Fountoulakis, the finest paralympic athletes will represent Greece in Brazil and expressed his gratitude for the support.
Greece will be represented in 11 sports – the most since the Athens Paralympics: Wheelchair tennis, powerlifting, sailing, swimming, boccia, wheelchair fencing, cycling, shooting, athletics, judo and archery.
After a disappointing performance at the FIVB World League competition, the Egyptian men’s volleyball team has promised better results at the Rio 2016 Olympics next month.
The team won four matches and lost five in the competition. However, Sherif El-Shemerly and team captain Hossam Abdallah promised to do better moving forward, saying the team was not in its best shape at the World League.
According to Kingfut, the coach stated that three factors contributed to the team’s poor performance.
“First, Ahmed Afifi, who is a very important player, got injured. Second, our best player did not show his best in Korea. Third, four important players did not participate in this game,” said El-Shemerly. “We have only four weeks to prepare for the Rio Olympic Games. Although this is not enough time to solve the problems, we will decrease errors.”
Egypt qualified to the World League among the top 24 teams in the 2015 World League, in which Egypt placed 21st. The team started off with a promising win against the Czech Republic, followed by a loss versus Canada, a win against China, then a defeat from Finland.
Egypt also defeated Japan and Turkey, but lost its last three games to the Netherlands, South Korea and Czech Republic. This set Egypt in seventh place out of the 12 teams in Group 2, which was not enough for a spot in the finals that will include the top three teams in the group along with the host country.
Still, the Egyptian players left the competition on a good note, with three of them among the top 20 scorers out of 137 players in Group 2. Ahmed El-Kotb is currently not only the highest scoring player in Group 2 but in the entire league, with 188 points. Additionally, Captain Hossam Abdallah is the second best server in Group 2, fourth in the competition. He is also the fifth best setter in his group, while Ahmed Abdelaal is the third best digger.
As number 17 in the world and winner of seven African Championships, Egypt is the second highest-ranking African country after Tunisia, which is only one place ahead. Tunisia represented Africa in the World League alongside Egypt, while Qatar was one of seven Asian countries participating.
Qatar and Tunisia both competed in Group 3, where they ranked sixth and eighth, respectively. When the teams met, Qatar won 3-1.
Egypt booked its ticket to the Rio 2016 Olympic volleyball event after beating Tunisia in the final of the men’s African Qualification Tournament that took place in Congo. Tunisia gave another shot at an Olympic berth in the second World Qualifier in Mexico, but failed to seize it after finishing in third place. Nevertheless, the Tunisians are eight-time African champions and have participated in six volleyball Olympic events.
The Egyptians are hoping to improve their performance in Rio 2016.
“Congratulations to the Czech Republic. I think we played a full five-set match with Korea yesterday and the players felt tired. That is why we could not play well today,” said Abdullah, following the defeat against Czech Republic. “We are going to recover and show a good performance at the Rio Olympic Games.”
Egypt will play against Poland on Aug. 7, Cuba on Aug. 10, Russia on the Aug. 11, Iran on Aug. 13 and Argentina on Aug. 15. It will proceed to the quarter finals if it ranks in the top four out of the six teams in its pool. This will be Egypt’s fifth Olympic volleyball participation, with a best finish of tenth place in Los Angeles 1984, when Tunisia ranked ninth.
On the other hand, Qatar will make its Olympic volleyball debut this year at the beach volleyball event, to which Tunisia and Egypt are heading as well.