HOW DID GREECE DISOWN THE GOLD MEDALIST ANNA KORAKAKIS!!!

Αυτή η ανάρτηση είναι επίσης διαθέσιμη στο: Greek

The economic crisis affected the sport press so from 3-7 people, now there is only one person to cover the sport events.

All of us, who are writing for the “small sport events”, knew the abilities of Anna Korakakis and we believed that she will win a medal, but no one believed that she will win 2 instead!

Anna Korakakis started on 2011, at the age of 14 and won the silver medal in the European Junior Championships in Belgrade.

The next years she won more medals, 8 total (Gold to the European Women Championships in Moscow in 2014, Bronze in the same year in Granada Women World Championships, another bronze at the World Cup in Fort women Benning 2015 through which ensured qualification for the Rio Olympics, silver at the World Cup in Munich in 2015, 2 silver at the World Cup in Baku in 2016, gold and silver at the World Junior Championships of 2016 Sul).

It was in May 2015, shortly after she had got qualified to the Olympics, when she said in an interview to gazzetta.gr (here the whole interview):

 ”I have many complains (from the Shooting Federation of Greece), I only have to say that after I was qualified to the Olympic Games, nobody called me to congratulate me.  My coach is my father, Tasos Korakakis, who the last 5 years is waiting from the TSER to make a Coaches School so he can get a diploma and they are making fun of him!

It all started from my first fight abroad, when my father asked them the number of the flight and the name of the hotel that I was going to stay, to accompany me, as I was only 14, and the answer that he took from the federation was, ”I forbid you to go”. Of course, my dad came and everything went fine, I went into the finals, I did my personal best record and I got the eighth place.

Last year when I came back from the European Chamionship in Moscow,  having achieved World Record, nobody was waiting for me at the airport.  A week later we had the Greek National Championship in Vyron.  When I got out of the bus my team mates run to me to congratulate me, but for the people of the Federation it was like I wasn’t there.  Again, nobody came to congratulate me”.

To the same interview, her father, Tasos Korakakis, said: ”What can I say?  We don’t even have uniforms to wear, 20 years in the Greek National team and I haven’t got a uniform of the national team.  It was only once, in the Mediterranean Championships that I got one and this was because there was a sponsor who gave us uniforms.  I am trying to get over all these problems, by trying to find sponsors, but is not that easy.  

We asked to go for Olympic preparation to a meeting, before the Olympic Games and they didn’t send us anywhere, even though they had taken 3,300 euros from the NOC’s.  When we asked them where are the money, they told us that this money were for the athletes’ expenses at Olympics, something that it is not true, because these expenses are been covered by the ILO”.

Since then, if I am not wrong, at the end of 2015, the Greek Olympic Committee, through the program ”Adopt an athlete on the road to Rio”, secured a sponsor for Anna, who till then was trying alone with her father.

And suddenly now, that she won the first bronze medal everybody congratulates her.

And when she won the Gold Medal, the Mayor of her town, demolished the shack that she was using for her workout.

In my opinion it is shameful to hijack Anna’s effort and her father’s.  They both won without having any support.

I feel very grateful because their effort was rewarded but I am not proud of Greece.  This medal reminds me of how pathetic country we are.  Anna Korakakis said this indirectly, after her win.  

She answered to ERT, a question that a reporter asked her, about what she was thinking on the pedestal during the National Anthem:”On the pedestal I cried because I was thinking of all the difficulties that I had gone through with my father in order to be here”.

Father and daughter, having full knowledge of the economic situation in the country, never asked for anything unreasonable.   They only asked for a few things, which they could have, if the Federation had a better management.

The economic situation in Greece is not getting better, but now, after the 2 medals that Anna won, they will finally find a solution in order for her to train in better conditions and travel with her coach. Something that they couldn’t do before she won the medals  because they didn’t have money…

The article is from Argyro Giannoudaki and it was published to gazzetta.gr

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