In the Eurotalents Selection Camp II table tennis for 2024, which took place August 4-10 in Riga, Theofanis Markoulakis and Nikos Alexidis, born in 2013, the champion and runner-up of Greece respectively this year in Patras in the K11 individual championship, took part. They responded exceptionally well to the demanding daily schedule, gained valuable experience among a total of 25 boys, 17 girls and 27 coaches from ten different ETTU member countries and showed their rich talent.
For years, Greece has consistently had similar “excursions” and this confirms the usefulness of such movements in ETTU’s development program. In the capital of Latvia, the coach of OA Chania, Michalis Angelidis, was responsible for the two children.
Markoulakis is number 1 in the EFOEPA evaluation table in both the mini-papaides and the papaides. In the biggest category, in fact, this year he won first place in the final of the development tournaments. At the end of May, she competed with the national women’s team in the Under 13 European Championship.
Thessalonigios Alexidis is at number 3 among the mini girls in the ranking of EFOEPA and at 14 among the girls. In Under 11, he also has a good position in the European ranking, specifically at number 41. Last season he made his debut in Bulgaria as a World Table Tennis Youth Contender, participated in the Under 11 Under 13 categories and had left a positive impression.
The Greek delegation went to Riga on 3/8, the training sessions lasted until 9/8 and, as always, included an internal tournament, the results of which are always a key criterion for the selections.
The friendly matches took place on the 6th and 7th of the month. The athletes were initially divided into five groups of five and the top two from each advanced to the final stage. Markoulakis won first place in his group and then seventh in the final ranking.
Alexidis could very well enter the top ten, but he lost the privileged second place in a three-way tie and by one set. Ranking matches followed and he came 15th.
As the Greek delegation was informed, Markoulakis claimed the last selection position with a Turkish athlete. Finally, with a vote of 2-1, the Committee took the athlete from the neighboring country as the fifth, who in the context of the internal matches had won 3-2 against Haniotis and in the extra time of the fifth set.
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