A year late due to the Covid pandemic, the Tokyo Summer Olympics commenced on Friday 23rd July. Despite a few late withdrawals, most of the world’s greatest sportsmen and women have gathered to win a coveted gold medal and secure their place in history. For the Cyprus team however, expectations are far more modest, with a small team of just fifteen having travelled to Japan.
In the early days of the modern Olympics, talented Cypriot athletes competed as part of the Greece team. The first modern Olympian from Cyprus was Anastasios Andreou, who competed in the 110m hurdles for Greece in 1896. It was only in 1980 that Cyprus took part in an Olympic Games as an independent nation. Since then, Cyprus has sent a team to every single Summer and Winter Games. The biggest team representing Cyprus was in the Sydney Olympics of 2000, in which the team comprised 22 athletes. A healthy 20 athletes also participated in the 2004 Athens Games, but since then, teams have been a little smaller. In part this is explained by the increased competition from athletes around the world for the precious few places available at the Olympics, and in many events, tougher qualifying standards. Another factor is that minority sports, such as the majority of those in the Olympics, are increasingly struggling for attention compared to the dominant sports such as football. This isn’t just a problem in Cyprus, but as a small country, a lack of media attention and funding makes it incredibly hard for potential Olympians to improve to a level where they can compete with their rivals around the world.
The sole medal Cyprus has ever won at either a Summer of Winter Games was at the London Olympics in 2012. The sailor Pavlos Kontides performed brilliantly to secure a silver medal in the Laser Class of the Sailing Regatta held on the South Coast at Weymouth. In recognition for creating this piece of history for Cypriot sport, Kontides was honoured by being asked to be the flag bearer for the Cyprus team at the following Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
With spectators banned from attending, the Opening Ceremony in Tokyo was a subdued affair, with little of the usual bombastic excitement. However, the Japanese hosts produced a tasteful and interesting show to the world. For the Parade of Nations at the Opening Ceremony, each team entered based on their name in Japanese, aside from the traditional appearance of the Greece team first and the home nation last. This meant that Cyprus were the fifty-fifth team to enter the stadium. Due to strict Covid protocols and an understandable caution, the number of participants in the Opening Ceremony was tiny compared to normal. Given the vast numbers of athletes and staff choosing to skip the ceremony, it meant the small Cypriot team, had a disproportionately bigger presence in the Athletes parade than would normally be the case. In a new initiative to promote gender equality, most nations chose to have joint flag bearers this year. This gave the shooter Andri Eleftheriou the privilege of sharing the flag bearing responsibilities with the athlete Milan Traikovic, who was a late replacement as flag bearer for Kontides, whose race schedule and distant sailing base at Enoshima made it impractical for him to take on this privileged responsibility for the second time.
For the Tokyo Olympics, fifteen sportsmen and women are competing for the Cyprus team. There are four entrants for the Cyprus team in the various Shooting disciplines. After missing out in 2016, London-born Georgios Achilleos was back for a fifth Olympics in the Men’s Skeet Shooting, joined in the same event by first time Olympian Dimitris Konstandinou. Both the Cypriot shooters gave a good account of themselves. Achilleos finishing ninth overall after the two days of qualifying, with Konstandinou finishing twelfth out of the thirty competitors. With only the top six progressing to the final, it meant both Cypriots missed out, but they should both be very proud of their performances.
In the Women’s Skeet, Andri Eleftheriou competed for a third time. An excellent performance saw her finish in seventh place out of twenty-eight competitors, matching her result from the Beijing Olympics of 2008. This meant Eleftheriou missed out of qualifying for the final by a single place. The fourth member of the Shooting team is Andreas Makri, who will participate in his first Olympics in the Men’s Trap across 28th and 29th July.
In the Sailing Laser Class, former medallist Pavlos Kontides has got off to a very good start in his bid for another medal. Kontides finished seventh, fourth and fourth in the first three of ten races. The Sailing regatta has been affected by a tropical storm in Japan which has led to some races being rescheduled for later in the week, but hopes remain high that by this time next week, Cyprus may be able to celebrate a second ever medal. There are also three other Sailors representing Cyprus in Tokyo. Andreas Cariolou is competing in the Men’s Windsurfing RS:X event. This is his fifth Olympic Games appearance, a joint-record for the Cypriot team. After the first six of twelve races, he lies in thirteenth place out of twenty-five competitors, with an excellent second day making up for an underwhelming first. He will hope to improve on his previous best finishes; thirteenth in both Athens and Beijing in 2004 and 2008.
In the women’s version of the same event, 19 year old Natasa Lappa is making her Olympic debut. Given her youth, she would not be expecting to finish highly in her event, and her position of twenty-second at the halfway point of the competition reflects this, but the experience should stand her in good stead for 2024. In the Women’s Laser-Radial event, 18 year old Marilena Makri is also participating in her first Olympics, and almost identically to Lappa, has also found the competition to be fierce, with her occupying the lowly position of twenty-fifth out of twenty-seven after four of the ten rounds. The young age of these two women bodes well for Cypriot Sailing in the future.
Cyclist Antri Christoforou, competing in the Women’s Road Race at her second Olympics, sadly became the first of the Cyprus team to be eliminated. In hot and humid conditions which contributed to a surprise Austrian winner, Christoforou failed to finish the race.
Marios Georgiou, will be participating in the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics event for a second consecutive Olympics. Georgiou was a double Gold medallist at the Commonwealth Games in 2018, but is unlikely to make much headway in a competitive event dominated in recent times by the Chinese.
Cyprus also has two representatives in Swimming in Tokyo. The 21 year old Kalia Antoniou will compete in the Women’s 50 and 100 Metres Freestyle events. Her brother Nikolas, the baby of the team at 17 years old, will also compete in the Men’s version of these same events.
The Athletics events do not begin until 30th July. Cyprus is represented by three athletes in this sport; Apostolos Parellis, Milan Traikovic and Eleni Artymata. Parellis will compete in the Discus, an event in which he is a former Commonwealth medallist. Serbian born Traikovic will compete in the 110 Metre Hurdles, an event in which he was a finalist in 2016. Artymata will be competing in her fourth Olympics, this time in the 400 Metres, after three previous entries in the 200 Metres.
With many of the Cypriot team still in action or yet to commence in their events, there remains lots to look forward to from a Cypriot perspective as we head into the second week of the Olympics.

Adam Ioannou