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Paris welcomes the Olympic Games Constantine CapsaskisNewsletter Editor Welcome to the weekly round-up of news by Kathimerini English Edition. The 2024 Summer Olympic Games are underway in Paris following the opening ceremony on Friday. The Greek Olympic team, as is customary, led the parade of boats along the Seine River. “Opening ceremony of Paris Olympic Games with Greece first,” wrote the Hellenic Olympic Committee on X, formerly Twitter. Giannis Antetokounmpo, two-time National Basket Association (NBA) Most Valuable Player and NBA Champion with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021, and Antigoni Drisbioti, who won two gold medals in race walking during the 2022 European Athletics Championships, were the Greek flagbearers during the ceremony. “My greatest honor”, wrote Antetokounmpo on X, an athlete whose story continues to captivate millions around the world. The 100 Greek athletes are set to compete in 16 different sports. They include former Olympic winners like Stefanos Ntouskos (gold medal in the men’s single sculls at the 2020 Olympic Games), Anna Korakaki (gold medal in the 25m pistol shot event at the 2016 Games), Katerina Stefanidi (gold medal in pole vaulting at the 2016 Games), Eleftherios Petrounias (gold medal in rings at the 2016 Games), and Miltiadis Tentoglou (gold medal in long jumping at the 2020 Games). The team also includes the men’s basketball team, making a return to the Olympic Games following a 16-year lapse, and the men’s (silver medal at the 2020 Games) and women’s water polo team. Tennis players Stefanos Tsitsipas (currently ranked as no. 12 in the ATP rankings) and Maria Sakkari (no. 8) will also represent Greece in Paris. Spotlight An incident in the Aegean this week threatened the rapprochement between Greece and Turkey. Turkish warships were deployed just outside Greek territorial waters near the islands of Kassos and Karpathos under the pretext that the continental shelf of Turkey had been violated by the Italian research ship Ievoli Relume. The vessel was conducting research in the area for the future deployment of underwater sea cables for the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI), the electricity connection between Greece and Cyprus. While intensive diplomatic efforts were successful in de-escalating the situation, there remain lingering issues. Turkey has attempted to frame the incident as Greek acquiescence to its expansionist claims in the Aegean, something Athens fervently denies. “No respect [to Turkish maritime jurisdiction] was shown or will be shown in the future by the Greek Armed Forces to Turkey’s illegal actions within the zone legally delimited between Greece and Egypt,” said the Greek Defense Ministry indicatively.   The turmoil within main opposition party SYRIZA continued this week following an explosive meeting chaired by leader Stefanos Kasselakis. During the meeting, which was discussing the organization of the next party conference, disagreements between the leadership and members of the committee led to Kasselakis saying that “whoever doesn’t like it, can leave”. Out of the twenty members on the committee, eight walked out over the statement, with Kasselakis refusing to apologize for it despite some members urging him to do so. Those who left the meeting include the head of the party’s parliamentary group, Sokratis Famellos, as well as former ministers Olga Gerovasili, Yiannis Ragousis, and Katerina Notopoulou. Later in the week, controversial SYRIZA MP Pavlos Polakis, who is known for his combative rhetorical style, was excluded from the party’s parliamentary group following a verbal attack against an aide to Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis.

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OPINION Tom EllisEditor-in-Chief, Kathimerini English Edition Not fully utilizing the Athens Olympics As Greeks watch the Paris Olympics, their mind inevitably goes back twenty years to the Athens Games. And beyond the innate sense of satisfaction for organizing the “best Games ever” and the praise we got from many, even critics of Greece’s delays and shortcomings, one cannot help but be disappointed by the fact that despite spending a huge, and disproportionate to the capabilities of the Greek economy and society, amount of money, we did not manage to “change” Athens to the extent that other cities have; the case of Barcelona comes to mind. Evaluating things twenty years later, with the objectivity and sobriety that time allows, it is clear that there was not the necessary planning for the utilization of stadiums, public areas and facilities. It is of course true that important projects were carried out – airport, the Attiki Odos road, metro, etc. – but the city and the country did not improve to the extent they could have. And the responsibility for this falls on everyone – primarily the governments and the political parties, but also the private sector and us, the citizens. The organization of the Olympic Games is expensive and essentially a unique opportunity a country, especially a small or medium-sized one, cannot afford to not take advantage of. Most would agree that Greece did not do so, certainly not to the extent it should.

CHART OF THE WEEK

The Health Ministry, in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has launched a new campaign aimed at tackling childhood obesity in Greece. The ministry has stated that it hopes to reduce the percent of overweight children (currently 37.5%) to 24.5% by 2030, a 13-point decrease in the span of six years. One of the main areas of focus for the campaign will be the country’s education system, and the Ministry will look to work with academics, teachers, and parents to change the everyday habits of Greece’s children. “Our aim is not only timely detection of child obesity, but prevention of the factors that lead to it”, stated Alternate Health Minister Eirini Agapidaki.

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ECONOMY IN A NUTSHELL

“The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 1,469.82 points this week, up 0.33% from last week. This marks the fourth consecutive week of growth.”

“The European Investment Bank and Greece’s four major banks have agreed to a new collaboration in forming a 700 million euro guarantee program to support mid-caps in Greece, as part of the European Union wide linked risk-sharing program.”

“The Golden Visa residency permit program, which has fuelled foreign investment in the Greek real estate market, has begun to show signs of cooling down, tempered by government reforms to the program. Signs include a 3.3% year-on-year decrease in applications for the first six months of the year.”

WHAT'S ON THE AGENDA

29/07/2024Olympic Games: 100 Greek athletes will compete for medals across several sports this week. They include flagbearer Antigoni Drisbioti on Thursday, Lefteris Petrounias on Sunday, tennis players Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari, the men’s basketball team, and the men’s and women’s water polo team. 29/07/2024Strikes: Mobilizations against the controversial new Health Ministry bill regulating mental health institutions and therapy centers for dependent individuals are set to continue next week. 01/08/2024Council of State: The Greek Council of State, the country’s top administrative court, will suspend its operations until the 9th of August as it will temporarily relocate to new premises to allow for maintenance works at its headquarters.

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PODCAST

26/07/2024 • 14:41Greeks turn their attention to the Paris OlympicsNiko Efstathiou, an Athens-based journalist and author of a best-selling biography on Olympic Champion Pyrros Dimas, joins me to look at the buzz around the Olympics in Greece this summer, and break down whether Greek sport – which took a hit during the crisis – is bouncing back.

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