With a fresh wound from recent earthquakes, Turkey has welcomed the cream of European sports to the Atakoy Stadium in Istanbul. The Geria Epirus Indoor Championships started yesterday with Dimitris Tziami and Nikos Andriopoulos reaching the final of the triple jump. Our champions competed with the mourning symbol to commemorate the victims of another tragedy, the Greek one.

Christos Kotitsas was the first to enter the arena with “Attack”. With a time of 1.50.82, he finished 25th in the 800m. Greece has competed in this event since Panagiotis Stroumbakos retired in 2004.

Dimitris Tsiamis finished 7th in today’s triple jump final with a third jump of 16.26m. Nikos Andriopoulos equaled his individual best with 16.39m in the last jump and reached the final 6th. On the contrary, Andreas Pantazis dropped out of the final with a score of 16.06 and ended his participation in the competition in 12th place. Anastasia Marinakova was far from in the best shape at 3000m and on 9.22.35 said goodbye to the European qualification.

This morning, the heavy artillery of Greek athletics will step in. Miltos Tentoglou will compete in the long jump (08.10) and Katerina Stefanidis and Nicole Kyriakopoulou in the pole vault (08.15). At 09:40 am Irini Vassiliou and Andriana Ferra will compete in the 400m qualifying race, at 10:10 am Spiridula Karidis will compete in the triple jump and at 11:05 am Rafaela Spanoudaki and Poliniki Emmanouilidou will compete in the 60m qualifying race. In the afternoon program, the interest of the Greeks in height with the participation of Antonis Merlos and in the final of the triple jump.