Costas Lagogiannis “hangs” his racket

Costas Lagogiannis is retiring from ping-pong at the age of 41, seeing that, due to increased professional and family obligations, he can not continue at the championship level.

An international athlete at all levels of our National teams, a Panhellenic player in all competitions and ages, he has an invaluable contribution to the sport and universal recognition. He stops because he thinks he has closed his circle, but he does not rule out that at some point in the future he will catch a racket again, simply doing his hobby.

Record holder in national titles in the men’s inter-club championships with 14, Lagogiannis wore the AEK jersey in recent years, while playing in France, while he was a member of the pre-national team until this season at SEF.

“I STOP SATIATED”

“Such a decision could not be easy, because daily training, participation in competitions and competitiveness are part of my life. However, I believe that I have completed my cycle and, jokingly, I would say that I also made circles. Around myself. I mean I did the route and I stop full, without having a second thought.

After all, this decision is a one-way street. The professional obligations are now very high and, in combination with the time I want to dedicate to my family, it is not possible to leave time for proper and demanding training “said Lagogiannis on the EFOEPA website and added that:

“I had in mind to continue competing in Greece and abroad, if not doing championships, then at a level corresponding to my current. This year, however, was really difficult for me, I made a great effort to complete it and, so, the decision was made to retire. I stop competing from table tennis, from daily training, but for the future let me not rule anything out.

“Maybe I can play in a lower category, because ping pong, apart from being a hobby, which has become a profession for me, will never cease to be a good pastime, even if it ceases to be a profession.”

Born in Piraeus on April 15, 1981, Lagogiannis started playing table tennis at the age of 8 in the halls of the Korydallos Sports Organization. He will even say with emphasis, that “I would not have taken ping pong seriously if Efthymis Americanos, who happened to be a coach at the Athletic Organization, where I started playing, had not been on my way and advised them. “My parents should take the sport seriously, because he saw that I had an appeal, a talent.”

Lagogiannis made history with AS Pera Athinon, with whom he won 12 Greek championships and 7 Greek Cups. In 2019 and 2020 he celebrated the title of A1 with AEK. He also played for Telamonas Salamina, Iraklis Heraklion Attica and Panathinaikos.

Coincidentally, that is, two days before the playoffs for the development of a champion in the A1 men, the news of the departure of an athlete who left an indelible “imprint” in the championship becomes known.

In the summer of 2001 he took his first step abroad and played in the German Bundesliga 2 against Elz. He stayed for one season, returned to Greece and, when at some point he was allowed to play in our A1 and in a foreign championship, he was in France. He played in the National categories with the jerseys of Amikal Leg Sezer, Capel la Grant, Antibes and most recently Chartres.

From a young age he was consistent in our national teams. She has competed extensively in European and Men’s World Championships and made her debut in a top event at the 2000 World Championships in Malaysia. He was a training assistant at the Athens Olympics.

He became Greek champion in the men’s singles in 2001. In general, he had 13 medals in the event, while he was also the champion of Greece in the junior singles in 1998 and the junior singles in 1995. He has to show five more national titles in the men’s doubles and one in the men’s doubles. -women, beyond of course the many firsts in the team and in the doubles in the age championships.

The two gold medals in the Mediterranean Youth Cup in 2002, in the doubles and the team, are in his most important international distinctions. In his record he still has a bronze medal in the singles of the same event, a bronze medal in the singles at the Mediterranean Youth Championship in 1998. Also, second place in the youth team at the Balkan Games in 1996 and third place in the men’s doubles of the Balkan Championship 2001.

With our Men’s National Team, he won, among other things, the eighth place in the European Championship 2011 and the first place in the Standard Division of the European League in the same year.

The right-handed all-around athlete started competing in 2022 with the veterans and specifically with Aktor in the POFEPA championship. The firsts of his team in the team competitions of Attica will τον send him next weekend to Loutraki for the finals of the team at a national level, but he also estimates that this occupation is difficult to keep in the new season…