They didn’t want ties! – THE NEWS

The press conference for the final 8 of the men’s Cup and the women’s final has just finished and Panioni coach Aris Lykogiannis approaches Christos Bafe and anxiously awaits the news.

“Everything is ok, we made it” is heard from the mouth of the sports director of Olympiakos and his face fills with a wide smile.

“We owe you man”, he tells him meaningfully and as I found out what he achieved – in agreement with the EEC – the man of the Reds was not to make the tie compulsory for the coaches and their partners throughout the Cup!

In matches where the details are often judged, the tie adds extra… pressure to the coaches (they usually solve it in difficult situations) and this news was welcomed with satisfaction. I remind you that this year coach Bartzokas and his colleagues appeared without ties in the match against Aris last October but were cleared by the sports judge for violating the clothing protocol.

Traianos Dellas, in his first statements after assuming the technical leadership of the Cretan club, underlined the lot of work that everyone in OFI has to do. The 48-year-old coach, as I learned, referred to the new page that opens in his career and at the same time sent a rallying message to the world of OFI. “The team has quality. I think a key element is psychology and self-confidence. We will focus on this to gain confidence. Through our work, I think the quality of the team will be seen again”, said Kolossos, among other things.

South Africa’s 800m gold medalist Caster Semenya continues her legal battle as she is reportedly banned from competing in certain distances in track and field because she refuses to undergo treatment to lower her testosterone levels.

The money she needs for her legal battle against this regulation is a lot and that’s why she turned to her fans asking for all possible financial help to continue her fight.

Once in Karaiskakis for the Cup, once in Toumba and once in New Philadelphia for the championship. All these first derbies of Fatih Terim in Greece were in empty stadiums. Today in Toumba he will get a first taste of what a Greek derby means with the presence of people in the stands. And we will get a first taste of whether this can affect his behavior or not. In Turkey he was… explosive in derbies and he is not one of those who does not deal with the platform.

Let’s see what he will do in Greece, although what emerges from his environment is that he is looking forward to living more not the atmosphere of Toumba, but that of Leoforos. Every time he went to a Panathinaikos Euroleague match, he left the crowd excited. And he expects “how and how” to see him next Wednesday on the Avenue.

This time Giannis Antetokounmpo did not let Nikola Jokic take his breath away. He stormed in from the start, threw a … party against opposing defenses and led the Bucks to a 112-95 victory over the Nuggets in Milwaukee. In the 30 minutes he played, he managed to score 36 points, collect 18 rebounds, hand out 5 assists and completely dominate. “I don’t care if we have two, five or ten wins in a row. It means nothing. What I would like to see is for us to move in the right direction as a team. And I think we do,” said Giannis. However, Jokic was also very good, reaching the triple double with 29 points, 12 rebounds, 8 assists.

Tomorrow’s first match between Olympiakos and Ferentsvaros for the ticket to the “16” of the Europa Conference League will be refereed by Swedish Glenn Nyberg. And the “omen” is interesting because the 35-year-old referee descends for the second time this year in Faliro: he was also the referee of Olympiacos – Genk on August 10, which opened the curtain of this season. That match that the Red and Whites won with a goal in the first phase of the match – Kostas Fortounis – laying the foundations for the most important qualification so far in the season. In fact, a year earlier (11/8/2022) Olympiacos had eliminated Slovan in Bratislava and Slovan (in the penalty shoot-out) with Nyberg as referee. Well so far… 2/2!

The 35-year-old’s assistants will be his compatriots Mehmet Culum and Andreas Soderqvist, while Fredrik Klite has been appointed as quarterback. The VAR will be run by Germans Marco Fritz and Seren Storks.

Sasha Vezenkov pitches. He suffered a third-degree sprain in his right ankle, and as my NBA watcher informed me, is expected to be out for about five weeks.

The Scuderia has unveiled online its new car for the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the SF-24, which apart from the new colors will be 95% redesigned. SF-24 will host Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in its cockpit this year – the latter for the last year. According to Ferrari technical director Frédéric Wasser “presenting a new car to the world for the first time is always a very exciting moment for me and the drivers, even if we are all already thinking about the moment we will face the rivals us on the track”.