World Jr Champion Papastamos To Make 2020 Debut At Greek Open

2020 Greek Open Winter Championships

• Friday, February 14th – Sunday, February 16th
• Oaka Indoor Swimming Pool
• 50m (LCM)
• Entries

The 2020 Greek Open Winter Championships sit among the meets taking place this weekend, with action kicking off on Friday, February 14th at the Oaka Indoor Swimming Pool.

The long course competition represents a qualifying opportunity for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, as well as for this year’s European Championships scheduled for Budapest, Hungary in May. The younger set will also be striving for European Junior Championships marks, with that event taking place in early July in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Among the elite Greek competitors ready to rumble is two-time European Junior Champion Apostolos Papastamos. The soon-to-be-19-year-old produced 200m IM and 400m IM personal bests in Kazan last year, topping the podium with respective efforts of 1:59.93 and 4:15.18.

The teen would go on to take World Junior Championships bronze in the 200m IM in an even lower 1:59.62 before firing off a World Junior Record of 4:11.93 en route to gold in the 400m IM.

Papastamos is set to race those events at Oaka this weekend, with the hope of dipping under the Olympic-qualifying times of 1:59.67 and 4:15.84.

Backstroking ace Apostolos Christou is also entered in this weekend’s meet, as is the newly-minted Greek record holder in the 800m free, Kostas Englezakis. Englezakis recently clocked a Tokyo-worthy time of 7:51.27 to set a new national standard at the FFN Golden Tour in Nice.

A host of Turkish swimmers will also be competing in Greece, including teen freestyle ace Beril Boecekler and breaststroker Emre Sakci.