Meet All the Athletes Representing Greece at the Tokyo Olympics

Meet All the Athletes Representing Greece at the Tokyo Olympics

Hellenic olympic
Greece’s Olympic team. Credit: Hellenic Olympic Committee

It is no surprise that Greece, the originator of the ancient Olympic Games, will have a strong presence at the upcoming Olympics in Tokyo.

In total, the country is sending over 80 athletes to Japan to compete on the highest level of athletics.

Tennis and table tennis

Olympic Tennis
Tsitsipas and Sakkari will represent Greece in the Tokyo Olympics. Credits: Rob Keating , CC BY-SA 2.0 and si.robi, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. Illustration: Greek Reporter

Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari have been officially chosen by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to compete for Greece in the Tokyo Olympic Games, starting today, July 23.

The decision means that the two Greek champions, after a tremendous showing at Paris’ Roland Garros, could earn medals for Greece at the top sporting event in the world.

The two players will not only play in their respective singles categories, but they will also pair together for the mixed doubles tournament.

Table tennis
Panagiotis Gionis. Credit: Xiaoyu Tang/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 2.0

Dentist and professional table tennis player Panagiotis Gionis will represent Greece in the sport in Tokyo. Gionis has been playing table tennis professionally since 2001, and he has competed in four Olympic Games.

Archery and shooting

anna korakaki
Anna Korakaki after winning gold and bronze in Rio. Credit: Facebook/ Anna Korakaki

Greek shooting star Anna Korakaki, 25, will compete in the 10 meter air pistol event in Tokyo. Korakaki won gold in the 25 meter pistol event and bronze in the 10 meter air pistol category in the 2016 Olympics, making her the first Greek woman athlete ever to win two Olympic medals in the same competition.

Korakaki, along with gymnast Eleftherios Petrounias, will be the flag bearers for Greece during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

skeet
Skeet shooter Nikos Mavrommatis. Credit: Facebook/Nikos Mavrommatis

Greek sport shooter Nikolaos Mavrommatis will represent Greece in Tokyo in the skeet shooting event. Mavrommatis ranked 9th in the same event in the 2012 Olympic Games held in London.

Olympics greek team Greece
Evangelia Psarra. Credit: Hellenic Olympic Committee

Evangelia Psarra, 47, who was born in Thessaloniki, has competed for Greece six times at the Summer Olympics in Archery.

The veteran Olympian qualified for the Summer 2021 games in Tokyo during the pre-Olympic archery tournament that was held in Paris in late June.

Artistic Swimming

Greece Greek olympic team games tokyo
Greel Artistic Swimming team performing to “CATS” during the qualifier. Credit: Hellenic Olympic Committee

The Greek artistic swimming team is composed of nine incredibly talented young women. The athletes on the team are Evangelia Papazoglou, Evangelia Platanioti, Maria Alzigkouzi, Georgia Vasilopoulou, Krystalenia Gialama, Penelope Karamesiou, Adriania Misikevits, Eleni Fragkaki, and Danai Kariori.

Greece’s artistic swimming team qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games after a breathtaking performance in in Barcelona, Spain in mid-June.

After a thrilling competition, a nail-biter till the very last competitor, Italy, Spain, and Greece earned their ticket to this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

The three nations join previously qualified Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, Japan, Russia and Ukraine to complete the starting lists for the Team events in Tokyo.

Greece, in third place after the Technical Team event, used their Free routine to pay homage to Greek Mythology, portraying the Wings of Icarus.

Greece received 88.6000 points for their performance and ranking second overall with 175.9990 points.

Athletes representing Greece at the Olympics in track and field

A total of 19 Greek athletes will be participating in the track and field event at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, which is called “Athletics.”

Katerina Stefanidi, Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou, and Helen Claudia Polak will participate in the women’s pole vault event, while Konstantinos Filippidis and Emmanouil Karalis will represent the country in the same event for male athletes.

olympics
Katerina Stefanidi. Credit: Barrymyles/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

Katerina Stefanidi, a 31-year old Athens native, is widely regarded as one of the top female Greek athletes of our time. She won Gold at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil with an outstanding jump of 4.85 meters.

olympic games greece greek team
Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou. Credit: Filip Bossuyt/ Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0

Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou is another Greek pole vault powerhouse. The 35-year-old athlete won a bronze medal at the Beijing World Championships in 2015, but was unable to compete in the 2016 Olympics due to injury.

Greece olympic
Helen Claudia Polak. Credit: Helen Claudia Polak/Instagram

Young athlete Helen Claudia Polak will be making her Olympic debut in Tokyo. She is of Sri-Lankan and Polish descent and has earned success at competitions both in Greece and throughout Europe.

olympics greece greek team
Konstantinos Fillippidis will join the Greek National Team at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Credit: C. Messier/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

Konstantinos Filippidis has represented Greece internationally throughout his career, and took sixth place at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

olympics greece greek team
Emmanouil Karalis will represent Greece in the Tokyo Olympics. Credit: Filip Bossuyt/ Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0

The upcoming Olympic Games will be the first for Emmanouil Karalis, a 21-year-old pole vault superstar for the Greek team. Son of a Greek father and Ugandan mother, Karalis has consistently ranked highly in youth competitions across Europe.

voula papachristou
Paraskevi “Voula” Papachristou in Glasgow in 2019. Credit: Filip Bossuyt/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 2.0

Paraskevi “Voula” Papachristou will join the Greek National Team at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo at the triple jump event. She has represented Greece internationally with great success.

Athletes Antigoni Drisbioti, Panayiota Tsinopoulou, and Kyriaki Filtisakou will represent Greece at the upcoming Olympic Games in the 20 km race walking event.

Alexandros Papamichail will compete in the 50 km race walking event for men.

Antigoni Drisbioti is a 37-year-old athlete from Karditsa, Greece. She represented the country at the 2016 Olympic Games and placed 15th.

Panayiota Tsinopoulou, a 30-year-old race walker, also participated in the last Summer Olympics in Brazil.

Athlete Kyriaki Filtisakou, 20, will be making her first appearance at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in the race walking event.

papamichail
Alexandros Papamichail. Credit: Facebook/ Alexandros Papamichail

Alexandros Papamichail has set multiple multiple national records for the 50 km race walk. He was born in Karditsa, and has represented Greece is many competitions across Europe and the world.

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Rafaela Spanoudaki in 2017. Credit: Vicdesm/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0

Rhodes-native Rafaela Spanoudaki-Hatziriga, 27, will travel to Tokyo to compete in both the 100 m and 200 m sprint events.

Olympics
Elisavet Esiridou will compete for Greece at the Olympics. Credit: Isiwal/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

Elisavet Pesiridou, born in Katerini, will participate in the 100 meter hurdles event for Greece at the Olympic Games. She is widely considered to be one of the best female Greek hurdlers of all time.

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Konstantinos Douvalidis-Ricks. Credit: Vanbasten23/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

Three-time Olympic athlete Konstantinos Douvalidis-Ricks will travel to Japan to compete in the 110 m hurdling event. Douvalidis-Ricks has taken part in many European and international competitions.

Greek sprinter Irini Vasiliou, who hails from Heraklion, Crete, will join the Greek National Team in the 400 m sprint event at the Olympics.

In terms of the discus throw event, Chrysoula Anagnostopoulou will represent Greece at the Olympics.

Chrysoula Anagnostopoulou is a discus thrower from the Greek city of Larisa. This will be her second time competing at the Olympic Games.

Greek athletes Michail Anastasakis, Stamatia Skarveli, and Christos Frantzeskakis will compete in the hammer throw event.

Hammer thrower
Michail Anastasakis, hammer thrower. Credit: Instagram/ Michalis Anastasakis

This will be the second Olympic run for Greek athlete Michail Anastasakis, 26, who participated in the Games in Rio in 2016.

Christos
Christos Frantzekakis will join the Greek team at the upcoming Olympics. Credit: Instagram/Christos Frantzekakis

Hammer thrower Christos Frantzeskakis, aged just 21, will compete at the Olympic Games for the first time in his athletic career in Tokyo.

Track and field athlete Miltos Tentoglou will participate in the long jump event for Greece at the Tokyo Olympics. In 2018, Tentoglou won gold at the European Championships.

Cycling, fencing, Taekwondo and Judo

CYCLING
Polychronos Tzortzakis. Credit: Jeremy Gunther Heinz Jahnick/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

Chania-born cyclist Polychronos Tzortzakis will compete in the road cycling race in the Tokyo Olympics. He currently works as a professional cyclist for the Kuwait Pro Cycling Team, but will represent his native Greece at the Games.

Christos Volikakis, a 33-year old cyclist from the Greek city of Volos, will race in the track cycling event. Volikakis is one of the most successful Greek track cyclists of recent memory.

Perikilis
Perikilis Ilias. Credit: WorldXCmtb/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0

Mountain biker Perikilis Ilias, an Athens native, will represent Greece in the mountain biking event in Tokyo. He competed in the cross country event at the 2012 Olympics.

Greek sabre fencer Theodora Goudoura, 24, will be competing in her first Olympic Games in Tokyo. In 2019, she won a bronze medal at the World Fencing Championships.

Alexios Ntanatsidis and Elisavet Teltsidou will represent Greece in Judo, a modern Japanese martial art, at the Olympics.

Olympics
Alexios Ntanatsidis will represent Greece at the Olympics. Credit: Instagram/ Alexios Ntanatsidis

Judoka Alexios Ntanatsidis, who won gold at the U21 World Championships in 2013, will compete for Greece at the upcoming Olympic Games.

Elisavet Teltsidou, winner of the gold medal at the Judo Grand Prix Antalya in 2019, is headed to the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Fani Tzeli, 19, will compete in the Taekwondo event for Greece at the Olympics. She took bronze at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics for the sport.

Gymnastics

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Eleftherious Pentrounias. Credit: Fernando Frazao/Agencia Brazil/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0 br

Eleftherios Petrounias, the Greek “Lord of the Rings,” qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games in late June after a majestic performance in winning the World Cup in Doha.

Petrounias won Gold with a massive 15.500 points.

Petrounias was untouchable on the rings from 2015-2018, winning titles at one Olympic Games, three World Championships, four European Championships and one European Games. But then his body gave up in the worst place for a rings specialist.

His left shoulder could no longer take the weight, and he went under the knife to fix his supraspinatus muscle.

Petrounias proved that he was fully recovered from that reconstruction and he is now fully focused on defending his title in Tokyo this year.

Swimming

Marathon swimmer Alkis Kynigakis will make his Olympic debut in the 10km swimming event at the Games this summer.

Greece greek olympics
Apostolos Christou. Credit: Instagram/Apostolos Christou

Greek swimmer Apostolos Christou will represent his country at the Olympic Games at the 100 m backstroke event. The 24-year-old swimmer also competed for Greece at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Kristian Gkolomeev is a Greek-Bulgarian swimmer who specializes in freestyle. He will compete in the 50 m freestyle, 4×100 freestyle, and 4×100 events at his second foray at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Young Greek swimmer Andreas Vazaios will compete in the 200 m mixed singles event. Vazaios was an accomplished student athlete at North Carolina State University, where he won the NCAA Championship Twice in the 200 Yard Butterfly.

Odysseas Meladinis will take part in the 4×100 freestyle in Tokyo, in what will be his second time at the Olympic Games representing Greece. Meladinis also competed in the 2016 Games in Rio.

Apostolos Papastamos, aged just 20, will participate in the 200 m mixed singles and 400 m mixed singles events for Greece in Tokyo. – swimming- 200 meters mixed singles, 400 meters mixed singles

greece olympics
Dimitrios Markos. Credit: Hellenic Olympic Committee

Both Konstantinos Englezakis and Dimitrios Markos will compete in the 800 m freestyle for Greece. Englezakis, 20, and Markos, 20, will be participating in their first Olympic Games.

Olympics greek
Anna Ntountounaki will represent Greece at the Olympics in Tokyo. Credit: Instagram/ Anna Ntountounaki

Anna Ntountounaki is a 25-year-old swimmer from Chania, Crete. Ntountounaki will take part in the 100 m butterfly competition, in which she also took part in the 2016 Olympics, as well as the 4×100 mixed.

Konstantinos Meretsolias
Konstantinos Meretsolias. Credit: Screenshot from Youtube

Konstantinos Meretsolias, Theodora Drakou, and Evangelos Makrigiannis will all represent Greece in the 4×100 mixed category.

Swimmer Evangelos Makrigiannis will be making his first appearance at the Olympics.

Theodora Drakou, 29, has competed in both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, and will soon represent Greece in Tokyo in the 4×100 mixed race.

Rowing and sailing

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Maria Kyridou and Christina Bourmpou when they took gold for Greece at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics. Credit: Martin Rulsch/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

Maria Kyridou and Christina Bourmpou will compete together for the Greek sailing team at the Women’s pair event.

Kyridou and Bourmpou, both just 20 years old, competed together in the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics, winning gold.

Rowers Stefanos Douskos, who competed at the Olympic Games in Rio, and Anneta Kyridou, who has participated in international and European competitions, will take part in the single scull rowing event.

Emilia Tsoulfa, 47, and Ariadni Spanaki, 20, will compete together in the 470 sailing event.

Emilia
Emilia Tsoulfa and her partner Sofia Bekatorou at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Credit: AMNA

Greek sailing champion Emilia Tsoulfa qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with her partner Ariadni Spanaki seventeen years after winning gold at the Athens Olympics in 2004 with Sofia Bekatorou.

Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis will compete in the 470 men’s sailing event, after qualifying for the Olympics for Greece by placing 6th in the World Championship in Portugal. The pair also won bronze at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Katerina Divari, 20, and Byron Kokkalanis, 35, will compete in the RS:X windsurfing event in Tokyo.

Byron Kokkalanis has participated in two Olympic Games in the past, in London and Rio, and will soon travel to Tokyo for his third.

This will be windsurfer Katerina Divari’s first shot at the Olympics.

Sailor Vasileia Karachaliou, 24, is an accomplished athlete. Among many awards, she has won a gold at the 2017 Sailing World Cup Series Round 1 in Miami and a bronze medal at the 2017 Laser & Laser Radial European Championships in Barcelona.

Ioannis Mitakis will represent Greece at the upcoming Olympic Games in the men’s Finn event. Mitakis has participated in both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games.

weightlifting and wrestling

olympicGreek athlete Theodoros Iakovidis will compete in the weightlifting event for his country at the Olympics in Japan. He came first at the 2018 Mediterranean Games and participated in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

Both Maria Prevolaraki and George Pilidis will represent Greece in the wrestling event.

Prevolaraki
Maria Prevolaraki. Credit: Instagram/Maria Prevolaraki

Maria Prevolaraki, 29, has represented Greece at the last two Summer Olympic Games. The impressive athlete came in first place in the Individual Wrestling World Cup held in Belgrade, Serbia in 2020.

olympics greece
George Pilidis will represent Greece at the upcoming Olympic Games. Credit: Facebook/George Pilidis

Wrestler George Pilidis won silver at the U23 European Championships in Serbia in 2019.

Water polo

Olympics
Greece’s water polo team after qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics in February. Credit: Hellenic Swimming Federation

Greece’s National Water Polo team will be competing in the Olympic Games for the 17th time when the team travels to Tokyo.

Greece has a strong international presence in water polo. it’s best score at the Olympics was in Athens in 2004, when the team came fourth.

The team is made up of 12 impressive athleter: Angelos Vlachopoulos, Konstantinos Galanidis, Konstantinos Genidounias, Konstantinos Gkiouvetsis, Georgios Dervisis, Emmanouil Zerdebas, Marios Kapotsis, Christodoulos Kolomvos, Konstantinos Mourikis, Alexandros Papanastasiou, Dimitrios Skoumpakis, and Ioannis Fountoulis.

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