Costas Hamalidis made history at the Rome Grand Prix

Costas Hamalidis made history at the Rome Grand Prix. He became the first Greek to win a medal at the World Taekwondo event, in which the world’s 32 best athletes from each weight category participate. Hamalidis, fifth recently at the World Championships in Azerbaijan and second two years ago at the European Championships in Bulgaria, celebrated winning the bronze medal in the Olympic -68 kg category, got 21.6 points and, in the Olympic rankings to be announced at the beginning of next month, he’s sure to be in the top 12, if not the top 10 (including the 30.24 points he scored in Baku).

Hamalidis, in the Olympic rankings announced two 24 hours ago, holds 24th place (14th in the World), however with his recent successes he is now aiming for the top six, which leads directly to the Paris Olympics in 2024. A place in the top six, who will have the opportunity to compete in the next major competitions that exist during the year, starting with the European Games 2023 that will take place at the end of the month in Krakow and are of the G4 category.

The Greek champion, in the round of 32, defeated 2-1 the Belgian Yawad Atsab, holder of a gold medal in the World Championship in 2015 in Chelyabinsk and bronze in 2019 in Manchester, while in the round of 16 he achieved one of his biggest victories to now of his career, beating 2-1 the British “bronze” Olympic champion in 2020 in Tokyo, world champion both in 2019 in Manchester and a few days ago in the capital of Azerbaijan and European champion in 2022 also in Manchester, Bradley Shinden. This victory acquires a triumphant character, if one considers that Shinden, No-1 in the world, dominated the first two minutes with 13-0, but Hamalidis managed to… turn it around! He took the victory in the second two minutes with 4-2, while securing qualification to the eight after 7-3 in the third and last two minutes of the match.

Hamalidis kept the tradition of losing the first two minutes in the quarter-finals against the Italian Baretta. He lost the first 4-1, but he was amazing in the next two and with 5-2, 11-6 he reached the big victory and of course the medals.

In the match for his entry into the final, Hamalidis faced Hungarian Zoza, No-16 in the Olympic ranking. He lost the first two minutes in the contacts (0-0), while in the second he seemed to run out of strength, as a result of which he lost 15-1. The bronze medal, the first for a Greek athlete in a Grand Prix, is a great success both for him and for Greek taekwondo, which now boasts many athletes who are able to claim and ultimately win medals!

It should be noted that until today, Greece had only two fifth places in a Grand Prix, with Nasia Mitsopoulou (2018 Moscow) and Apostolis Telikostoglou (2022 Rome).

In the premiere of the Grand Prix of Rome, both the member of the pre-Olympic team, Phaedra Kaltekis, and the 7th Olympic champion of Tokyo, Fenia Tzelis, also competed in the -57 kg category.