“Bronze” Konstantinos Dimitropoulos at the U21 European Taekwondo Championship

With the third place of Constantinos Dimitropoulos at the European Youth Taekwondo Championships in Bucharest, our country reached 33 medals in the history of the event, at the same time that the 19-year-old athlete rose to second place on the list of Greek multi-medalists in European championships of all categories with the four he has won from 2018 to date.

Dimitropoulos needed two wins to reach the quarterfinals. He won 2-1 against the Frenchman Alessio Capolini in the round of 32 and 2-0 against the German Meckleman in the round of 16. In the race to enter the medals, the 2023 Greek junior men’s champion defeated Ukraine’s Manenkof 2-1 (17-20, 16-14, 7-7), with Kosovo’s Ademi on his way to the semi-finals category.

A lopsided contest, where Dimitropoulos appeared to be close to victory in the third period when he took a 15-8 lead. But two heads and two consecutive points turned the tide of the match, resulting in a 16-16 tie giving Ademi victory on better points, with the Greek champion staying in third place.

With this medal, Dimitropoulos reached four and is now tied for second place with the late Alexandros Nikolaidis, but also the member of the pre-Olympic team, Konstantinos Hamalidis.

Dimitropoulos is now “hunting” for the record of five medals held by Giorgos Ionas from 1992 to 2002 (three gold, one silver, one bronze).

The three victories were not enough to give Athena Makrygianni a place on the winners’ podium at -57 kg, while Konstantinos Hartomasidis, the Greek U21 champion in the year that leaves in a few days, had two victories in three matches.

Agoritsa-Artemia Kitsiu, who also competed in the Romanian event as a member of the first national team, came close to her second European medal.

Friday’s program with the Greek participations:

Men

-58 kg (Ioannis Mylonas, Alexandros Barkov, Georgios Gerardis)

-80 kg (Michael Tsipounis, Christos Fardelos)

Women

-53 kg (Kalliopi Koutroumpi, Dimitra Giannakidou)

-73 kg (Irini Dova)