Inspired by the true story of veteran Marathon champion Maria Polyzou, the fairy tale “A Giant Called M.P.” by Magda Costopoulou-Beriou is out in both Greek and English editions, coinciding with the Athens Marathon-The Authentic that takes place this Sunday.
Polish runner Andrzej Radzikowski won the 245.3km historic Spartathlon race on Saturday for the first time, clocking 23 hours, 1 minute and 13 seconds.
Spartathlon 2016, this unique annual ultra-marathon race of 246 kilometers from Athens to Sparta draped in history, is starting on Friday morning with the winner set to cross the finish line early on Saturday.
Triple-jump national record holder Piyi Devetzi has had her Olympic bronze medal from the 2008 Games in Beijing annulled on Tuesday as the International Amateur Athletics Federation, track and field’s world governing body, announced she is retrospectively disqualified from August 2007 for failing a drugs test.
Ekaterini Stefanidi, winner of the women’s Olympic pole vault event in Rio on Friday, poses with her gold medal as she arrives at Athens International Airport yesterday. "I hope that this medal will attract more young people to pole vault and track and field in general," she told journalists. [Stelios Misinas/Eurokinissi]
Greece's Ekaterini Stefanidi won the Olympic pole vault on Friday and her country's first athletics gold since the 2004 Athens Games, then defended its integrity after barred Russian Yelena Isinbayeva blasted the event as sub-par without her in the field.
Triple-jumper Voula Papachristou won Greece’s second and final medal in the 2016 European Championships in Amsterdam finishing third in Sunday’s final.
Greece dominated the women’s pole vault at the European Track and Field Championship in Amsterdam on Saturday as Katerina Stefanidi claimed gold and Nicole Kyriakopoulou finished fourth in the final.
Greece's Ekaterini Stefanidi competes in the women's pole vault event at the European Athletics Championships at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam on Thursday. [John Thys/AFP]
Fifty-five days before the Games begin in Rio de Janeiro, athletes from around the world are taking part in very different kind of sporting tournament in southern Greece.
Barefoot runners wearing tunics take part in a footrace in the ancient stadium of Nemea, southwest of Athens on Saturday. Fifty-five days before the Games begin in Rio de Janeiro, participants from around the world are taking part in very different kind of sporting tournament. The races, only include a 90 meter sprint on a straight dirt course at a 2,300-year-old stadium and a 7.5 kilometer run through fabled olive groves and vineyards, where in ancient Greek mythology Hercules, god of strength, sport and fertility, slayed a fearsome lion. [Yorgos Karahalis/AP]
Eighteen-year-old Miltos Tentoglou recorded a spectacular effort in the long jump at the Papaflessia meeting in Kalamata on Sunday, leaping at 8.19 meters to qualify for the Rio Olympics.
Using “Trainers Without Frontiers: Keep running, keep donating” as its motto, "Marathon Team Greece by Maria Polyzou" is collecting old and used trainers to offer them to refugees and migrants in Athens.
Katerina Stefanidi of Greece competes in the 4th Athens Street Pole Vault at Syntagma Square, central Athens, on Tuesday. The 26-year-old Greek champion won the women’s competition with a jump of 4.65 meters in an event that drew hundreds of locals and visitors. Kostas Filippidis won the men’s event (5.70 m). The results will be taken into account in the European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam in July and the Rio Olympics in August. The event first launched in 2013 at the Zappeion. It moved to Flisvos in 2014 before taking place in Syntagma for the first time last year.
Voula Papachristou earned Greece’s second medal at the World Indoor Track & Field Championships in Portland, US, finishing third at the triple-jump final on Saturday.
Costas Gelaouzos and Rania Rebouli registered new course records at the Athens Half Marathon held at the center of the capital on Sunday morning with great success, helped by the favorable weather.
