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Top 5 Greek Athletes

Greece is not only known as the origin of democracy but is also home of the Olympic games. Olympics is an important part of the Greek culture and sporting events.

Other popular games in the country include football, basketball, water polo, volleyball, swimming, weightlifting, wrestling, sailing and rowing and handball.

This country has risen the ranks in international sports events in the recent decade.

Football has particularly gained momentum in the country with the national team winning the UEFA European football championship.

Most Greek athletes have won numerous medals in various sports and have become international stars.

Let’s look at the top 5 Greek athletes.

1. Anna Korakaki

Anna korakaki is a 24-year-old shooter that started competing at the age of 8. She won her first gold medal for Greece in 2004 when the country hosted the Olympic games. Her father is a retired shooter and is her source of inspiration.

She started competing professionally in 2009 aged 13. She is a member of the Orion shooting club of Thessaloniki.

She has represented her country in the 2016 summer Olympics. She won a gold medal in the 25m pistol and a bronze medal in the 10m air pistol.

This was the first time a Greek athlete got to win two Olympic medals in the same competition. She was also the first female athlete to win in more than a century.

She defeated the stellar Monika Karsch from Germany in the 25m fire pistol competition. She ended up winning three rounds and had a 6-0 lead.

They tied in the second round. She won the last round when Monika missed three shots giving her an 8-6 lead.

Anna became the first female Olympic torchbearer of an Olympic torch relay in March 2020.

She climbed up the ladder by winning the women’s 10m air pistol event in the world cup for the third time in her career.

2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

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Giannis is a Greek professional basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association. He was born in Greece to Nigerian parents.

He started playing basketball at the youth club Filathlitikos in Athens. He then proceeded to play for the senior’s club in 2011.

He was then drafted for the NBA in 2013 and was selected in15^th overall by the Bucks. His talent and skills on the court have earned him the nickname Greek freak.

In the 2016-2017 season, he led his team in all the five major categories and was the first NBA player in history to finish a regular season in the top 20.

He was awarded the most improved player in 2017 and received four all-star selections including the Eastern Conference captain for 2020.

Giannis was also named as the most valuable NBA player in 2019. He has represented his country in the 2013 U-20 national team for the first time at the 2013 FIBA Europe.

Together with his teammates, Giannis boosted Greece to an 8-2 record and finished on the 5^th place with 8.0 average points.

He was the second in the defensive rebound and seventh in blocked shots.

3. Ekaterini Thanou

The third on the list is Ekaterini Thanou a retired sprinter. She has won several medals in the 100 metres, an Olympic silver medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia and was crowned the 2002 European champion in Munich, Germany.

In the 2000 Olympics, Ekaterini finished second after American Marion Jones. Marion was stripped of the medal after she admitted to doping charges.

Ekaterini also missed the gold medal because her drug test also came out positive.

In 2008 She was selected by the Hellenic Olympic Committee for the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

Although she did not have the best time, she had 11.32 seconds, no other Greek woman had beaten her record, she made it to the team.

She was however barred from competing and representing the country by the Executive Board of the IOC for bringing disgrace to the country’s sports.

4. Katerina Stefanidi

Katerina Stefanidi is another Greek pole vaulter. She has won several medals for her sportsmanship in the game.

She had a disappointing year in 2015 when she missed the world championship finals.

In the 2016 Olympics, Katerina won a gold medal with a jump of 4.85 metres. Before that, she had competed in the 2012 summer Olympics in the same sport.

In the next two years, she was able to be the record holder of the world outdoor, European outdoor and the diamond league in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

She was the two-time world indoor champion winning a bronze medal. She has won a total of 10 medals in all five major international championships.

Katerina is regarded as the greatest female athlete in the history of Greek sport.

She was voted as the European Athlete of the year in 2017 at the traditional European Athletics Federation gala in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Katerina won the 2019 Diamond League series for a fourth successive year.

5. Stefanos Tsitsipas

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Finally, the top five is Stefanos Tsitsipas who is a professional tennis player.

He is one of the youngest players to be in the top 10 positions as ranked by the Association of Tennis Professionals.

His career has also been ranked at number 2 in the whole world and is one of Greek’s highest-ranked player in history.

Stefanos was born in a tennis-playing family. His mother played professionally for the women’s tennis association while his father trained as a tennis coach.

He began playing tennis at the tender age of 3 and took lesson when he turned six.

Stefanos ranked as number 1 in the junior championship in the world. He was the Greek first player and third male Greek player in the Open Era to win a junior Grand Slam title in the 2016 Wimbledon boys’ doubles event.

He won the runner-up trophy at the Brest Challenger in 2017, he also played in the French Open that same year.

He has been training at the Mouratoglou Academy in France since 2015.