In the Youth Contender of Bulgaria with 15 athletes, Greece

A total of 15 sportsmen and women will participate for Greece in the World Table Tennis Youth Contender in Bulgaria, there will also be six coaches in the technical guidance and nothing similar has ever happened in the short history of the Contender for young ages.

In the town of Panagiouriste, which organizes the games 7-10/03, the teenagers Alexandros Madesis, Giorgos Gerakios of AEK, Stathis Manolopoulos (OEA Rethymno), Giorgos Kosmas (DAO Tavrou), Yannis Koutras, Yannis Anastasiadis (Poseidon Loutraki) will take part. , Grigoris Tsilopoulos (PKD Tavrou), the juniors Mavra Kontopoulou, Alkistis Kasimi, Chrysavgi Tsilopoulos (PKD Tavrou), the boy Kostas Fakaros (Phoenix Agia Sophia Piraeus) and the seniors Giorgos Sassanis, Dimitris-Marios Alexandridis (Telamon Salamina), Michalis Bitha you go (AES Ikaros Kastritsiou) and Nikos Alexidis (Pera Thessaloniki).

Also, it is unprecedented that there will be at least one Greek presence in each category, from Under 11 to Under 19.

As for the coaches, Costas Madesis of AEK, Aris Tsakiroglou, Michalis Tsahakis of Tavros Table Tennis, Konstantinos Kostopoulos, who has cooperation with the Tavros teams, Vania Zaneva of AS Pera Thessaloniki and Christos Tsarsitalidis from Poseidon Loutrakiou.

For seven children from Tavros Table Tennis (along with Sassani and Alexandridis, who have tickets to Telamos) a training session was arranged in Sofia and the head of the Tavros training team, Alexis Arseniadis, is there.

The members of the delegation will be transported mainly by car from Athens and Thessaloniki, but also by plane. The four athletes and the three athletes of Tavros traveled by road to Sofia from Monday morning and under the supervision of coaches Arseniadis, Tsahakis and Kostopoulos they will train until Wednesday morning at the facilities of the local association, where Petko Gabrovski, an athlete, belongs of DAOT. Afterwards, they will depart by road for Panagiouriste.

The remaining athletes and coaches of the expedition go on Wednesday to the venue of the Youth Contender. They will do their training there on the same day and learn about their singles opponents.

Three athletes can only compete in one category, while the other 12 will also appear in the category immediately following theirs.

The age categories in which the Greeks will compete are the following: Alexandros Madesis, Giorgos Gerakios and Stathis Manolopoulos in K19. Giannis Koutras, Giorgos Kosmas, Giannis Anastasiadis and Grigoris Tsilopoulos in K17 and K19. Correspondingly, among the girls, Mavra Kontopoulou, Alkistis Kasimi and Chrysavgi Tsilopoulou will be in K17 and K19.

Kostas Fakaros is in K15 and K17, Giorgos Sassanis, Dimitris-Marios Alexandridis, Michalis Bithavas in K13 and K15 and the youngest of the group, Nikos Alexidis in K11 and K13. The latter, like the Tsilopoulos brothers, Sassanis and Bithavas will live their first experience as a Youth Contender of the World Federation.

Three Greek pairs have been formed for the mixed doubles and they are Kosmas/Kontopoulou, Madesis/Kassimi and Tsilopoulos/Tsilopoulou in the U19 category. Also, in the U15 category, Fakaros and the Kazakh Tomiris Kosar from Kazakhstan, Alexandridis and the also Kazakh Sodigiona Kamilzanova and Alexidis and the Bulgarian Katerina Salkina were declared.

With the strong representation in the mixed doubles, there is a possibility for high placings and let’s remember that Konstantinos Alexoudis from Filia Orestiadas had won the third place in the Under 13 singles at last year’s Youth Contender in Bulgaria, at the same place.