Christos Xenos and Alexandros Diakoumakos stood tall for Greece at the 2023 World Transplant Games, dominating singles and doubles in table tennis for a hugely successful outing.
The two athletes featured in the 24th edition of the Games in Perth, with the table tennis events held at the Bendat Basketball Centre from April 20-21, and won a singles gold medal each in their respective age categories to add to the gold they won together in doubles.
The 59-yr-old Xenos, whose success dates back to the 90s, came out on top in the 50-59 age bracket as he outlasted 19 other participants in total, having entered the tournament in the round of 16 as the second favourite overall.
The 24-yr-old Diakoumakos, meanwhile, was the favourite in the 18-29 age group against nine other competitors, gaining passage straight to the quarter-finals before recording three wins to take the crown.
The two players were given entry into the 20-29 age group for doubles where they combined their efforts to win gold.
Other players that featured at the Games included Athanasios Anarchoulis and Kostas Kalos.
The Games, first held in 1978 in Portsmouth, UK, is designed to be the world’s largest awareness event for the value and success of transplant, for recipients, donors, families and supporters alike.
This year’s edition in Perth, which was hosted by Transplant Australia, saw athletes and teams from 45 countries participate in 17 different sports in the spirit of both competition and camaraderie.
The events see people that have undergone transplants compete with one another in a bid to promote organ donation and encourage others around the world to register and support donation, and to help recipients improve their health and fitness around their transplanted organ.
Entry into the games is open to all individuals that have received life supporting allografts and hemopoietic cell transplants from other individuals or species which require or have required the use of immunosuppressive drug therapies.
The events are designed to be safe for each competitor, meaning that they must have been transplanted for at least one year, with stable graft function, be medically fit and have trained for the events in which they have entered.
