NBA Champion Giannis Antetokounmpo and tennis star Maria Sakkari have been voted Greece’s Top Athletes of the Year at the 68th Panhellenic Sports Press Association (PSAT) awards ceremony held at the Athens Music Hall (Megaron Mousikis) in the presence of the President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
The annual event celebrates and honours, athletes, teams, coaches and sporting personalities who stood our for their ethos, sporting and social contribution.
It came as no surprise when Giannis was announced as Greece’s Top Athlete of The Year, again, given his contribution to sports and current track record:
In November, Antetokounmpo reached 600 NBA appearances with historic stats (21 points with 57.7% 2 points, 28.7% 3 points, 71.7% shots, 9.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.3 blocks per 32.5 minutes played).
He was named MVP in the NBA All-Star Game, while he was included in the top five of last season and named Athlete of the Year by GQ.
It also didn’t come as any surprise to see our Maria Sakkari voted Greece’s top female athlete of the year for 2021 top athlete for 2021.
The “golden” girl of Greek tennis reached the semifinals in two Grand Slams during the year, the US Open and Roland Garros, making No. 6 in the world rankings (from No. 22 in November 2020), for the first time in her career.
During 2021, Sakkari scored 38 victories and suffered 20 defeats.
Meanwhile, Greece’s top team for 2021 was the Men’s National Polo Team which won silver at the recent Tokyo Olympics, marking the greatest achievement in the history of Greek water polo.