Kyriaki Tsaousi

Happy birthday to Greece’s sprinter Kyriaki Tsaousi, who was training with the senior national relay squad this spring, four months after winning a national title.

In June last year at Serres, Kyriaki won the Panhellenic U20 100m championship and added silver over 200m. A month later at the Panthessaliko Stadium in Volos she went up an age group and took **bronze in both the 100m and the 200m** at the senior and U23 championships. Her legal bests stand at 11.85 and 24.33.

Then in March this year the Greek federation called her into the senior national 4x100m training camp at OAKA, in a pool that included Polyniki Emmanouilidou, Rafaela Spanoudaki and Dimitra Tsoukala, preparing to chase relay qualification for the European Championships. Greek athletics media described her as in excellent condition and a genuine contender for a place. That is a nineteen-year-old being measured against the fastest women in the country, and being kept in the room.

What makes it better is how recently she was doing something else entirely. In April 2024 she was a schoolgirl in Preveza winning the 400m hurdles at the Ioannina regional school games. Fourteen months later she was the national U20 100m champion. The event switch came with a move, from Preveza in Epirus to Aris in Thessaloniki, where she is coached by Kostas Kotsidis and studies physical education.

Her old coach in Preveza, Dimitris Georgopetris, said something after she won that most coaches never get to say out loud about an athlete who has left them: as her former coach, he felt proud and vindicated, and the best was yet to come.

Χρόνια πολλά, Κυριακή! Και να τα εκατοστίσεις, με υγεία, χαρά και ακόμα πιο γρήγορα εκατοστά. Όπα! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇬🇷