Spyros Capralos

Two weeks from the start of the Olympic Games in Paris, the world’s premier sporting event where the greatest athletes meet every four years, aiming for the highest distinction.

Istanbul has been unanimously chosen as the host for the fourth European Games in 2027, the European Olympic Committees (EOC) said Wednesday.

The multi-sport event, first staged in 2015, was the fifth continental Games to be established after the Asian Games, Pan American Games, Pacific Games and African Games.

Greece's Olympic delegation will have its own portable air conditioners at the 33rd Games in Paris after the hosts' decision not to install ACs in the athletes' rooms for environmental reasons.

Greek organizers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic flame lighting ceremony in ancient Olympia next month said on Monday they have taken extra measures to avoid the coronavirus' spread during the torch's months-long relay.

Greece, host of the first modern games in 1896, regained International Olympic Committee representation after four years on Wednesday when the head of its Olympic body Spyros Capralos was elected as one of 10 new members to the global organization.

The IOC has nominated Greek official Spyros Capralos as a member, seven years after he was linked to black market ticket sales for the 2012 London Olympics.

The Olympic flame was handed to organizers of the 2018 Pyeongchang Games on Tuesday, and it will now head off on a 100-day journey across South Korea before the opening ceremony on February 9.

The countdown to the 23rd Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 has officially begun, as the lighting ceremony of the Olympic flame, which took place at Ancient Olympia in the Peloponnese came to its conclusion on October 24.

Greece's beleaguered Olympic sports federations are struggling for their very existence following a new round of cuts in state funding despite several new emergency measures announced on Friday.