Finale at the European Men’s/Women’s with two bronze medals from Fani Tzelis and Charalambos Fluskounis

Today was also the most productive day, in terms of medals, for the Greek Olympic Taekwondo at the European Men’s and Women’s Championships held in Belgrade. The 7th Olympian of Tokyo, Fani Tzeli and Charalambos Fluskounis were on the third step of the winners’ podium at -57 and -74 kg respectively, at the same time as the “silver” world champion of 2022 in Mexico, Thenia Sarvanaki, was ranked 5th at -62 kg. Thus, our country completed its presence at the event with 1 silver and three bronze medals, which is also the most productive of the last 12 years (4 medals in 2010 in St. Petersburg and 2012 in Manchester)! At the same time, the Greek Olympic taekwondo, at the level of European championships for men and women, reached 50 medals, namely 9 gold, 13 silver and 28 bronze.

Tzelis and Fluskounis reached the semi-finals with three straight wins. Tzeli won 2-1 against Maric from Serbia, 2-1 against Russian Vikto (played with AIN) and 2-0 against Assemani from Belgium. In the semi-finals, she gave the British two-time “gold” Olympic champion, Jade Jones, a hard time, but she stayed for details – as the score of the two periods (5-6, 15-15) testifies – out of contention for the gold medal.

Fluskounis, for his part, reached the semi-finals without losing a single two minutes. He prevailed 2-0 over Portugal’s Prokopiuc, Slovenia’s Kovacic and France’s Celine (No-15 in the world), only to suffer a 2-0 loss in the 4th round match to Georgian Kinturashvili, No-9 in the world.

Sarvanaki defeated Berisha from Montenegro and Zpak from Poland in series 2-0, but in the quarterfinals she lost 2-0 to Cheka Stolbova, “silver” European champion in 2022 in Manchester.

Let’s remember that in the premiere of the event, Konstantinos Dimitropoulos was second at -54 kg, while the next day, Vassilis Tholiotis was third at -87 kg.