Local Football:

The season is underway and last month friendly matches were organized to get the players warmed up. Following are the reports on two of them:

Irothotos Alikarnassos 0 v Thiagoras Anopoli 3:
It took a while for both teams to settle down, and after 15 minutes Irothotos almost went ahead. But, looking offside and with only the goalkeeper to beat, the shot went soaring over the bar. Thiagoras immediately hit back with a goal from Dimitris Karagounis. After 25 minutes a penalty was awarded to Thiagoras, which was saved by the Irodotos goal keeper. A nice move in the 35^th minute gave Thiagoras a second goal from Karagounis. In the 37^th minute, Nikos Yiakoumakis made it three. Thiagoras, now well on top, controlled the game until half time. In the second half, the match was more like a kick about. With both teams slowing down, it became more of a mid-field battle.

PAO Gouves 1 v Romanos Elia 1:
This friendly game ended even, with Gouves going ahead first in the 40^th minute with a goal by Yiorgos Kiriakakis to lead 1 – 0 at half time. Romanos equalized in the very last minute of the game with a penalty scored by Sofoklis Liakakis

New Football Stadium for Elia:
It is hoped that the new football stadium for the Romanos team in Elia will be completed by the end of September or the beginning of October. It is planned to have Astro Turf, six flood lights, new changing rooms and, hopefully, a small stand for spectators. For now, the team is training at the AEK grounds in Karteros.

Everyone in Elia is excited about the stadium  as the team vice president, Nikos Vourliotakis said, “it’s a jewel for Elia, to help promote athletics and lead children to exercise and keep them away from drugs etc.”

Handball:
The season of the A1 division starts on September 15. The draw for the first five games has brought together two of the strongest teams, Doukas and AEK Athens, who will play each other in the first round. Last season’s champions, Panellinios, will start the defense of their title against newly promoted Thermaikos, and last year’s runners up, Philippos Verias, will play PAOK Thessaloniki.

Basketball
Under-18 European Championships: Greece became the Under-18 European Basketball Champions by beating Lithuania 57 – 50. In the match, Greece slipped behind in the early stages but came back to hold off a dangerous Lithuanian side.

Tennis:
Spain’s Rafael Nadal has ended Roger Federer’s record 237-week reign as the world number one. The Spaniard, who won the Olympic gold in Beijing, is 770 points ahead of the Swiss in the latest ATP Tour rankings. Federer has been number one since February 2004, but, while Federer has won only two titles in 2008, Nadal has taken eight including his first Wimbledon crown.

Football:
The season has only just started but already the hooligans are in control. The so-called friendly game between Panserraikos and PAOK erupted into a stone throwing match between the fans leaving at least 10 people injured. The referee was forced to abandon the game after 1,000 peaceful fans ran onto the pitch to avoid the hooligans fighting on the terraces. Riot police were called, but the violence continued in the city centre with windows smashed and shops looted. The two teams play each other in a friendly every year before the season starts and have never had trouble like this before. Let’s hope that this is just a one time occurrence.

Olympics:
After all the controversy regarding athletes being quite rightly banned for drug taking, Greece still managed to send their largest squad ever to an Olympic games. The squad consisted of 84 men and 72 women covering 23 disciplines. However, many of them did not perform as well as expected and the medal tally reflected this. While every athlete has an off day, and the squad will be extremely disappointed with their performances, let us hope that that they can put all this behind them and look forward to the next games without the dopes!