In Brief
Scott Jurek makes it three Spartathlon wins in a row Scott Jurek, the favorite, won the 246-kilometer ultramarathon from Athens to Sparta on Saturday. The American finished first for the third year in a row on Saturday morning, with a personal best of 22 hours, 20 minutes and 01 seconds. This is also the fifth-best record of all time. Finishing second was Austrian Markus Thalmann, over two-and-a-half hours behind Jurek, at 24.52.09. Third was Denmark’s Lars Skytte Christoffersen with 25.29.41. The first Greek was Dimitris Petroliagis who finished 10th in 27.37.36. «Good morning, hello, I thank Greece and Athens and Sparta,» said an ecstatic Jurek in Greek after the race that finished at the statue of King Leonidas in Sparta. Panionios wins basketball tournament Panionios basketball club showed it is in good shape ahead of its return to the Euroleague as it beat Fortitudo Bologna and Maroussi over the weekend to win the Andreas Varikas tournament it organizes every year. The Nea Smyrni outfit defeated the Italians 93-81 in the semifinal and the Greeks 71-67 to lift the trophy for the 13th time. The team is now in Thessalia to play local clubs Trikala and Olympia Larissas. Kifissia runner-up Kifissia volleyball club finished second in the Balkans Cup held for the first time this year. On Saturday, the northern Athens side lost to Turkey’s Buyuksehir 3-2 in the final (25-16, 20-25, 25-17, 22-25, 15-11). In the semifinal on Friday at the final four held in Romania, Kifissia had beaten Serbia’s Ribnica Kraljevo 3-2 (25-14, 25-15, 17-25, 20-25, 16-14). Top shooter Cyprus skeet shooter Andri Eleftheriou won the gold medal in the World Cup finals held in Minsk, Belarus, on the weekend. She became the first Cypriot ever to win gold at such high level in the sport. Eleftheriou had finished seventh in last month’s Olympic Games in Beijing. Volleyball miss Greece missed out on hosting the 2011 European Volleyball Championships. The country’s joint bid with Bulgaria was among the five finalists, but the Confederation of European Volleyball (CEV) decided on Saturday to award the competition to Austria and the Czech Republic.
