Qualification for Pantechaki at the Paradressage World Championship 2022

Markopoulo, April 5 2022

Press Release

Great success for the Greek Equestrian Sport and for the paradressage athlete Dimitra Eleni Pantehaki from Heraklion, Crete. In her first participation for this year in an international competition Dimitra Eleni Pantehaki managed to qualify for her big goal this year, which is the World Paradressage Championship in August in Denmark, and she deserves a lot of congratulations.

Greece was represented by two Paralympic equestrian athletes in the CPEDI3 *, which took place in Deauville, France, April 1-3, 2022.

Despite the adverse weather conditions with air, snow and low temperatures, Dimitra - Eleni Pantehaki with Miss Olimpia, after an absence of two years due to covid, took part in the Grade I category of the competition and with her performance managed to get the qualification. 

Also, Michalis Kalarakis who rode Tony, after an absence of seven years from the international competitions, took part in the Grade II category with a very good presence, but this time did not manage to reach the qualification limit (62%). Dimitra Eleni achieved the required percentage of 62.75% in the individual competition, while Michalis had a percentage of 61.93% in the Team competition.

The two Paralympic equestrian athletes come from Heraklion and train at the facilities of the Equestrian Academy of Crete under the guidance of coach Marianna Grammatikaki, who said after the CPEDI "First of all I would like to thank Mr. George Kapelakis and the Hellenic Equestrian Federation as well as Hertz Hellas, who made this competition a reality. These athletes, who due to Covid-19 had to compete for a long time, managed to represent our country with honor. Dimitra Eleni is the first Greek rider to qualify for the World Championship in the history of Greek Equestrian, while Michalis was a bit unlucky in this event, as a result of which he failed to qualify for this competition. I wish and hope that the future is bright! "

The goal of the athletes is to participate in the World Paradressage Championship in the summer in Denmark and then the Paralympics in Paris in 2024.

With the qualification of Dimitra Eleni, Greek Equestrian sport secured the first representation at the World Championship in Denmark, followed by our athletes in Jumping and Dressage, which shows the upward course of the sport in Greece.

From the Press Office of the Hellenic Equestrian Federation