Greece’s rowing athletes Maria Kyridou and Christina Bourbou made history on Wednesday at the Tokyo Olympics after breaking the world record in the semi-finals of the Women’s coxless pair category.
The Greek duo finished at 6:48.70, making history as this was the fastest time in the world in this event.
The previous world record was 6:49.08, held by the New Zealand duo of Grace Prendergast and Kerri Gowler, who had competed in the final round of the Women’s Pair category at the Rowing World Cup II event that was held in Poznan, Poland in 2017.
However, during the second semi-finals of Wednesday, the world record that had just been achieved by the Greek athletes, was broken yet again — this time by the team from New Zealand.
Prendergast and Gowler managed to break the record of Kyridou and Bourbou, finishing at an impressive 6:47.41, which is 1.29 seconds faster than the time the Greek rowers had just set.
Of course, this spectacular performance by the Greek team, which crossed the finished line first, made them breeze to the finals, which will be held at 3:30 AM Eastern European Summer Time on Thursday.
The Greek athletes began the race quite slowly and only finished fourth in the first 1,500 meters with a time of 05:11.33; however, during the last 500 meters they gave it their all.
Not only they managed to go ahead, but their speed was such that they broke the world record.
Greece Hopes for Rowing Medal High, After Tennis Shock at Tokyo Olympics
Wednesday began with great hopes for Team Hellas in the Olympics; however, Tuesday proved quite bitter, as one of the country’s superstars, Maria Sakkari, didn’t manage to qualify for the round of 16 in tennis.
Sakkari lost to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina In her second match in the Olympic tournament in Tokyo.
The Greek tennis player won’t pursue her dream of fighting for an individual Olympic medal — this time around, anyway.
Sakkari won the first set 7-5 in a confrontation that was difficult for both players. However, she proved to be more determined and managed to get the set.
Unfortunately, the second set proved consistency was more of a problem for Sakkari. A series of misfortunes and mistakes, along with the much better performance of the Ukrainian player, allowed the set to fall to Svitolina with a score of 3-6.
A similar pattern was followed in the third and last set, where the Greek champion lost 4-6.
Tennis has never enjoyed much popularity in Greece, which is why Tsitsipas has spoken numerous times of his goal to make tennis popular in Greece. One way to do that, beyond being a successful all-around tennis player, is to win a medal for his country at the Olympics.
Tsitsipas was a finalist at the Roland Garros Grand Slam tournament earlier this Summer.
Although the Greek champion built a big lead and appeared on his way to an upset victory, Novak Djokovic mounted an improbable comeback to win his 19th major title by a score of 6-7 (6), 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
Tsitsipas was the youngest men’s finalist at Roland Garros since Rafael Nadal.
The Spanish tennis legend had won the title in 2008.
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