Olympiacos clinched the title in the A1 Men national League in Greece for the 2021-2022 season. In the exciting final of the playoffs against Panathinaikos on the afternoon of Thursday 26/05 at the Peace and Friendship Stadium Olympiacos prevailed 3-1 took the trophy again after 2018 and made the double after the Greek Cup.
In the fantastic performance in the finish of the season which was enjoyed by 150 fans up close and thousands from the computers Olympiacos recorded the victory and won the 15th men’s championship in its history. Olympiacos had a key player Ioannis SGOUROPOULOS who prevailed in both of his individual games and got another victory from the Croatian Tomislav PUCAR.
In the big “battle” of the two leading Greek clubs in the match with the highest level of competition which has ever appeared in the Greek A1 Panathinaikos was a great opponent and worthy adversary led the Croatian Andrei GACINA. The match was broadcast live from the HTTF channel on youtube at the link https://youtu.be/uqbKrHSCn1s. The 3rd place was won by AS Pera Athinon which with an overall good performance defeated 3-1 OEA Rethymno which lined up without foreign athletes in the playoffs. The match was broadcast live on the link https://youtu.be/NUM_4VZNVYY.
Olympiakos and Panathinaikos “clashed” again in a decisive title match after many years while after 2011 it was the second time that the championship was judged in the playoffs! The match was eagerly awaited by all the Greek fans and the top European athletes of the two teams together with 4 times European champion of the youth categories SGOUROPOULOS completely justified the huge interest. It was not only the top names of the two teams and the great importance of the match but also the fact that they appeared a roster… Champions League with athletes who have medals in European championships. Think that the Portuguese Joao MONTEIRO three times European champion in men was on the bench of Olympiacos!
There were fluctuations and agony from beginning to end and the title was judged in detail after 2.5 hours. SGOUROPOULOS was used to the playoffs (after the completion of his games in the Bundesliga he had the right to play in the Greek Cup) and was placed 1st player by his coach George Christoforakis. He defeated two world-class athletes the Polish DYJAS and the Croatian GACINA the second one with a reversal of 1-2 making the final 3-1 for Piraeus.
In another crucial point of the match the Cuban Kampos took the 1st set against PUCAR but the Croatian increased his performance and prevailing with 3-1 gave his team the lead again after the draw of Gacina (3-1 set by Shibaev). It should be noted that GACINA and DYJAS played in the playoffs for the only time this year in the championship.
The final Olympiacos-Panathinaikos 3-1:
Ioannis Sgouropoulos-Jakob Dyjas 3-0 (11-9 11-8 11-8)
Aleksandr Shibaev-Andrej Gacina 1-3 (11-4 7-11 5-11 8-11)
Tomislav Pucar-Jorge Campos 3-1 (8-11 11-6 11-6 11-8)
Sgouropoulos-Gacina 3-2 (9-11 13-11 10-12 11-8 11-9)
In the group stage Olympiacos also relied on Tassos RINIOTIS the Portuguese Enio MENDES Socrates GIANNOUTSOS and Alkiviadis STAMATOUROS. Similarly Panathinaikos which had Lefteris MAKRAS in the technical guidance used in the first phase of the championship in addition to KAMPOS Konstantinos KONSTANTINOPOULOS Jason KORDOUTIS the Bulgarian Petio KRASTEV and the French Lorent COVA. Today on the bench was also George KONSTANTINOPOULOS who was available having completed his games in the Polish league.
The 3rd place was won by AS Pera Athinon. In the match for the bronze medal Rethymno prevailed with 3-1 after two victories of Pantasak Tanviriyavetsakul from Thailand and one of Stratos Damianis. Pera had Michalis Vakrakos as the 4th player Rethymno as Spyros Kioufis but there was no change in the three.
The match AS Pera Athens-OEA Rethymno 3-1 :
Pantasak Tanvirigiavetsakoul-Pantelis Vogiatzidakis 3-0 (11-2 11-2 11-4)
Dimitris Kordoutis-Nikos Antoniadis 1-3 (8-11 11-9 7-11 5-11)
Stratos Damianis-Fanis Tsachakis 3-0 (11-5 11-1 11-2)
Pantasak-Antoniadis 3-0 (14-12 13-11 11-9)
Olympiacos became the champion of Greece in women this year as well as men’s team. The championship was completed without playoffs at the end of January and the team of Piraeus won without defeat the 20th title in its history. After two rounds he collected 24 points. The 2nd place was taken by Panathinaikos with 22 and the 3rd by Sarises Florinas with 19.
Olympiacos included Sweden’s Li Fen Christina Kallberg Ukraine’s Margarita Pesotska Spain’s Galia Dvorak Aliki Kioufi and Hungary’s Christina Ambrose.
Giorgos Christoforakis is the coach of Olympiacos for another year.
