In Paris, the city that will host the Olympic Games one year from today, Apostolis Telikostoglou wrote History for Greek Olympic Taekwondo.
He became the first Greek athlete to reach a Grand Prix final, taking over from Konstantinos Hamalidis who earlier this year was third in the Rome Grand Prix.
Telikostoglou, just like in 2019 at the World Championships in Manchester, also won the silver medal, which will give him 36 additional points in the Olympic ranking.
Before the Grand Prix of the French capital, the Greek champion, a member of the pre-Olympic team established by ELOT, was 12th in the Olympic ranking and 7th in the World. With the 36 points he got today, he will go up at least two places and now, with even greater chances, he claims a place in the top six of -80kg which is equivalent to a direct qualification for “Paris 2024”.
The Kozanite champion, who in the Grand Prix had to show a 5th place in 2022 in Rome, looked unstoppable. Against opponents who are in the first 32 places of the Olympic ranking (in this particular tournament, ranking G6, the best 32 from each division participate), he looked competitively more mature and more focused than ever. Especially in the quarter-final and also in the semi-final (but also in the first two periods of the final), his stubbornness and will to reach high, seemed to be in the… red!
In the round of 32, Telikostoglou defeated Georgianos Kinchourashvili 2-0, while with the same score he advanced to the round of 16 after defeating Brazilian Rodriguez. In order to qualify for the semi-final, he overcame the obstacle – with a score of 2-1 – of the French Bouzid Suihili, while in the match of the four, he also defeated the Turkish Yildiz with a score of 2-1. In the final, against Iranos Barkhontari, Telikostoglou lost the first set 8-6, won the second set 9-7, to lose the third set 12-0, thus occupying the second place, which apart from all the others it also brought him the sum of $3,000.
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