Gionis and Tatasopoulos presented the sport at the Greek-French School of Pefki in an event with a dual purpose

The students of the Greek-French School of Pefki had a wonderful opportunity to learn more about competitive table tennis and to realize that at the highest level it also includes events for people with disabilities.

Opportunity, given to them through a useful action, jointly organized by the Hellenic Philatelic Table Tennis Federation and the Hellenic Deaf Sports Federation with selected guests for the presentation of the Olympic sport.

The legendary Panagiotis Gionis was in Saint Joseph on the morning of Wednesday 20/11 with his six consecutive participations in the Olympic Games and the great honors in European and world competitions. He was flanked by his coach in the national team Kostas Vatsaklis, the deaf and hard of hearing champion Alexandros Tatasopoulos, who has competed in his home Olympic Games of 2022 and the coach of E.O.A.K. in table tennis Christos Vatsaklis. Attended by E.O.A.K. there was also the technical advisor Prokopis Karagiannis.

The purpose of the event was not only to get to know table tennis better, with a huge personality in general in the country’s sports scene present, but also to convey the message that the sport is engaging with good competitive motivation and people with health problems and the deaf and hard of hearing is within this context. Recently, Loutraki in Corinth has successfully hosted the European Deaf Table Tennis 2024 for the senior and junior categories (by the way, Tatasopoulos and Meleti took 5th place there in the men’s-women’s mixed doubles).

It was an excellent presentation, which took place in the school’s auditorium, lasted 1.5 hours and kept the interest of the Saint Joseph Middle and High School children intense until the end.

Gionis and Tatasopoulos demonstrated the sport and along the way played with the students, while also giving them the racket to test their skills against each other and of course have fun. They also talked about their experiences and the importance of playing sports.

The K. Vatsaklis quoted various facts about the sport, his brother Christos referred to specifics for deaf athletes, while the school’s gymnast Dora Mitropoulou presented a small tribute to the two champions on a projector, mentioned the great successes of Gionis and had footage of the winning match of the Paris Olympic tournament with Canadian Edward Lee.

At the end, Gionis and Tatasopoulos presented the Hellenic-French School with t-shirts from their participation in the Olympic Games that they participated in, this year and in 2022 respectively, signed autographs and took photos with the staff and students. The school, for its part, offered the athletes flowers and souvenirs. Finally, it should be noted that in Saint Joseph the E.O.A.K. has carried out other actions for sports where its athletes are active, but for the first time for table tennis.