The Olympic Games may be over, but that doesn’t mean that the season for playing sports is behind us! Right off the heels of the world’s greatest sporting event will be the Tokyo Paralympics, which will put all athletes with disabilities on center stage and give them their own chance to shine.
Of course, Greece will have their own team of representatives in the competition, who will aspire for greatness and hope to put their nation on the highest point of the pedestal.
In fact, this will be the first time since the Paralympics of Athens in 2004 that the blue-and-white will have such high representation, as they will participate in 11 different sports. This feat is made even more impressive when considering the current state of the world, with the pandemic forcing many athletes to refrain from training.
Most notable among the sports that Greece will compete in will be the sphere, in which both the Stefanidis father and son will take part, an event that will occur for the first time in the tournament’s history.
But it’s not only the sphere team that are worth keeping an eye on, as the Greek mission to Tokyo will include many more athletes who have high aspirations at the event, such as the Rio bronze medalist in the shotput F53, Dimitra Korokida, the silver medalist in the sabre B event in 2016, Panagiotis Triantafyllou and the silver medalist at the 2015 Glasgow swimming world championships, Antonis Tsapatakis.
In the previous Paralympics of Rio 2016, Greece performed quite admirably, collecting a total of 12 medals (five gold, four silver and four bronze). But considering their greater participation numbers in this year’s competition, it’s safe to assume that they will be aiming even higher this time around.
Some of the sports in which the Greek athletes will compete in Tokyo and the ones who will represent the “galanolefki” are written below.
- Weight lifting (on bench): Pavlos Mamalos, Gremislav Moisiadis, Nikolaos Goudanis, Pashalis Kouloumoglou, Dimitris Mpakochristos, Anastasios Mpaos
- Sailing: Anargyros Notaroglou, Vasilis Christoforou, Georgios Delikouras, Theodors Alexas
- Swimming: Alexandros Taxildaris, Andreas Katsaros, Antonis Tsapatakis, Aristidis Makrodimitris, Vasilis Tsagkaris, Giannis Kostakis, Giorgos Kapellakis, Konstantinos Karaouzas, Maria Kalpakidou, Nikos Tsotras, Semiha Rizaoglou, Charalambos Taiganidis, Christos Tampaxis, Chrysoula Antoniadou
- Boccia: Alexandros Papadakis, Grigoris Polychronidis, Maria Eleni Kordali, Nikos Pananos, Panagiotis Soulanis
- Wheelchair fencing: Gerasimos Pylarinos, Georgios Alexakis, Emmanouil Mpogdos, Panagiotis Triantafyllou
- Cycling: Adamantia Halkiadaki, Stamatis Kotzias, Christos Stefanakis
- Para-shooting: Evangelos Kakoseos, Theodora Moutsiou
- Para-archery: Anna Tzika
The 2020 Tokyo Paralympics will begin next Tuesday, August 24.
