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On Thursday April 16, in the historic city of Preveza (Epirus area) 359 km northwest from Athens (Preveza is the birthplace of 2004 Athens olympics 20km women winner, Athanasia Tzoumeleka and the other Greek Olympians Athina Papagianni) taken place the first race walking half marathon valid as Greece National Championship.
Preveza has not hosted an important Panhellenic competition such as a National Championship since 2005. In this occasion he Mayor awarded Marinos Lytras the 46 years old veteran athlete who still participate at the National Championships and his coach Chris Karageorgos old famous race walking Greek champion.
The course was very good and the good weather helped a brilliant competition.
Although most of them had good experiences a month ago, at the Balkan Championships and during the Easter period (the Greeks celebrated Easter on April 12), all the athletes tried and did their best.
Half Marathon Men
In the Men’s Half Marathon, the surprise came from thew U23 Georgios Kritoulis, who became the winner the first time in the senior category. Kritoulis won in 1:31:47, just 3 seconds shy away of Alexandros Papamichail‘s national record (1:31.44), set in Izmir during the Balkan Championships. Papamichail and Kritoulis walked shoulder by shoulder until 17km, as Papamichail had received four red cards and was disqualified.
We saw interesting performances from Andreas Papastergiou (2nd in 1:37:08), Konstantinos-Alexandros Ntentopoulos (3rd in 1:37:42), and Georgios Kelepouris (4th in 1:40:47).
Half Marathon Women
On women event Christina Papadopoulou and Panagiota Tsinopoulou started together but from the 7km Christina started to force the pace and goes to lead the event till the end. She won the gold in 1:41:01. Panagiota Tsinopoulou won silver in 1:42:46. Bronze medal to Anastasia Antonopoulou (a nice surprise after a long time) who stopped the clock in 1:46:27; she was also 1st in U23 age group. Olga Fiaska abandoned the race at 11km due to knee problems.
The highlight was the presence in Preveza of Athanasia Tzoumeleka and Athina Papagianni with their 1st coach Mr. Mylonakis. All of them were awarded by the Mayor of the city of Preveza Mr. Nicolaos Georgakos
An emontional moment was when Athanasia Tzoumeleka and Athina Papagianni met after 22 years their athlete-mate Kristina Saltanovic from Lithuania. Both three athletes participated in Athens Olympics together and today Kristina Saltanovic is one of the World Athletics Race walking Judges of Silver Level.
News by Zoe Gkini (GRE)
More photos click on this link to Flick: https://www.flickr.com/photos/194536414@N08/albums/72177720333136798/page3
Photo album (some photos by Sports Press)
