At midnight on Monday, the deadline for applications for participation in the men’s and women’s Pan-Hellenic Table Tennis Championship was completed, and among the names of the athletes, those of Panagiotis Gionis and Giannis Sgouropoulos stand out.
The top Greek table tennis players return this year to the most important institution, which will take place in the federal hall of SEF on the weekend of February 26-27 and give it a greater entity and shine. Especially, the reappearance of Gionis, may seem… unbelievable for the friends of the sport, as it comes after 21 whole years!
The current general secretary of EFOEPA last took part in the Panhellenic Championship in 2001, the year in which he began his international and professional career.
European champion Sgouropoulos, who also plays in foreign clubs, has been absent for the last two years.
The prestige of the annual event, of course, is held high by all the top internationals, who consistently give the “present”. And it is equally important and pleasant that this year almost all the members of the National teams in men and women will be in SEF.
The men will miss only the Greek champion of 2020, Konstantinos Angelakis, due to the new knee injury. The women’s 2020 champion of Greece, Georgia Zavitsanou, who lives and works in England and does not train at SEF, did not participate in the women.
Among the top names that will take part, there are, of course, the champions and runners-up of Greece in 2021 in the simple Giorgos Stamatouros, Giorgos Konstantinopoulos, Katerina Toliou and Elisavet Terpou respectively.
On the other hand, there is a negative element and EFOEPA has no problem pointing it out. The positions of the candidates, which he had set for the simple one, were not filled in in the statements. In the men the qualifications were a total of 64 (from the evaluation table and regional championships / qualifying phase) and declared 54, while in the women the qualifications were 48 and declared only 27.
In other words, 81 athletes from 35 clubs are going to compete and the Federation is not satisfied with the overall response to this year’s effort to upgrade the Panhellenic Championship.
He had, of course, set relatively high participation fees, because this is the top event, but he also gave new incentives with more matches in the qualifying phase and the emergence of local champions in six areas.
In the final phase, EFOEPA will look with various moves to re-organize a pan-Hellenic championship worthy of its history and importance.
There is a second negative element, which, however, has to do exclusively with the special conditions due to coronavirus. As in the postponed 2021 last September at SEF, so in this year’s Panhellenic Championship there will be no spectators, as defined by the updated health protocol of the sport for all games.
Table tennis fans will not be able to see the big stars of the event up close, but, of course, the live internet broadcasts will convey an image, pulse and emotions from the faliriko stage.
The applications for the men’s doubles and the women’s doubles end on Wednesday.
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