Greece’s Apostolos Christou and Evangelos Makrygiannis celebrated a gold and a silver medal in the 100-meter backstroke final at the European Men’s Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Christou, the 27-year old Greek swimmer, added yet another achievement to Greece’s great performance this year after the triumph of Apostolos Papastamos in the 400-meter medley and Stergios Bilas’ gold in the 50-meter butterfly.
Christou’s time was 52.23, a speed that secured him the gold medal. On his behalf, Makrygiannis was awarded the silver medal for Greece, finishing 0.6 seconds later at 52.83.
Poland’s Ksawery Masiuk finished third with 53.56 seconds.
Christou finished first on Saturday night in the second semifinal, securing his position in today’s final, with Makrygiannis finishing first in the initial semifinal.
𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗞𝗘 𝗗𝗢𝗨𝗕𝗟𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗔𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗦 𝗖𝗛𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗨 🇬🇷🥇🥇
Christou leads a Greek 1-2 as he adds another gold to Hellas’ tally!#EACBelgrade2024 | #EuropeanAquatics pic.twitter.com/4pSsFCgpD2
— European Aquatics (@EuroAquatics) June 23, 2024
Not the only success for Greek swimmers at European Championships
Greece’s Stergios Bilas celebrated a gold medal in the 50-meter butterfly at the European Men’s Championships in Belgrade a few days ago on Tuesday. The 23-year-old swimmer made history by winning his first individual gold at the men’s level.
Bilas was a little off his prelim effort of 23.06 but still managed to get to the wall first for gold in the men’s 50-meter butterfly (23.15). He out-touched Simon Bucher by just four-hundredths of a second (23.19).
On that same day, Apostolos Papastamos won another historic gold medal as he became the first swimmer for Greece to win the 400-meter individual medley.
The 2019 World and European Junior champion went from third at the end of the butterfly leg to first. This was after the backstroke in which he split 1:04.44 to lead Balasz Hollo of Hungary by 0.82 seconds at the halfway stage.
Papastamos extended his lead on the breaststroke to 2.61 seconds over Gabor Zombori, and, although the Hungarian pair ate into the deficit on the freestyle, the Greek won in a national record of 4:10.83. Balasz was second in 4:11.51 with Zombori taking bronze in 4:11.70.
As of Sunday evening, Greece ranked second in swimming and third in the overall competition with a total of 17 medals. Greece has attained 5 gold, 8 silver, and 4 bronze medals. Greece only comes second to Hungary, Europe’s traditional champion in swimming.
The European Aquatics Championships is organized by LEN—the governing body for aquatics in Europe. The championships are currently held every two years (in even years), and since 2022, they have included five aquatics disciplines: swimming (long course/50m pool), diving, synchronized swimming, open water swimming, and high diving.
The championships were first held in 1926 and included sports like water polo. The last time Greece organized the European Championships was over thirty years ago in distant 1991, when the country co-hosted the competition with Italy.