European Olympic Singles Qualification | 30 Jun 2012

KREANGA and GIONIS training with Serbs and Egyptians

The second and most important part in preparing of Greek athletes for the Olympic Games begins tomorrow evening in Karpenisi. The qualifiers for the Men’ s singles event at the Olympic tournament Kallinikos KREANGA and Panagiotis GIONIS, with the members of the national team Kostas PAPAGEORGIOU, Kostas LAGOGIANNIS and Tasos RINIOTIS will be together until July 10 at joint training sessions with five foreign champions.

They will have the strong and quality work in the excellent facilities of the hotel “Montana”. On Monday morning the team will be strengthened by Serbian champions Aleksandar KARAKASEVIC, Marko JEVTOVIC (coming Sunday night in Athens) and from Sunday evening Egyptians Lasin El SAID, Omar ASAR and Ahmed SALEH (the arrival in Greece scheduled for tomorrow at noon).

The Greek national coach Kostas VATSAKLIS spoke on a special significance of the camp. “We pass to the second stage of preparation and go for intensive work in Karpenisi with five foreign players. Both Serbs, and the three Egyptians are qualifiers for the Olympic Games, therefore, they have high motivation and potential for a serious workout. The facilities are excellent; combined with the climate will allow us to do quality work for ten days. In the first part we had work more on strength and fitness, now the burden will fall mainly on tactics: finishes points, service, games, etc, but of course we will have sessions in fitness”, said federal technician, who went one day before in Karpenisi with physiotherapist of national teams Naim AKROUT in order to prepare the space.

Kostas VATSAKLIS explained that was difficult to arrange a coaching camp with these excellent possibilities due to financial problems of the federation. “To place this camp took massive and concerted efforts on the part of the Greek federation and from my own. I said this because I come in contact with the Egyptians and with the Serbs during World Qualification Tournament in Qatar especially for this issue. The Egyptians shoved the interest by themselves and asked if we can organize preparatory gathering again remembering previous useful experience in Greece. Both sides eventually responded with pleasure to our proposal for a joint 10-day preparation. It should be noted that the cost of participation is entirely their own, the Greek federation does not cover anything.”

Few days before, the two Serbs athletes took part in a training camp in Maribor, Slovenia, while the Egyptians did test in the tournament in Morocco. Serbs come to Greece with the whole team. With the athletes will be the federal coach Boris VUKELIC and the responsible for the fitness and physical therapy Nemanja VUKOV and Dragana PERIC- GOLIN, respectively. KARAKASEVIC and JEVTOVIC will participate in singles of the Olympic Games.

From the foreign athletes in Karpenisi the presence that stands out is that of course Aleksandar KARAKASEVIC current “bronze” European champion in singles and men’s doubles, former European champion in doubles mixed, a great name, who has taken part in three Olympics (1996, 2004, 2008).

The mission of the Egyptian led the federal technical Metzent ASUR. Egypt, who participated in coaching camp in Loutraki at 2003, a year before the Olympic tournament in Athens, will be present in London in a singles and team event. ASAR and LASIN will play in both events, while SALEH has been selected to complete the trio for the team.