DOUBLE medal winner Antonis Nicolaides returned to Cyprus late on Monday night without a single member of the public to greet him after representing his country with distinction at the Commonwealth Games, although his family more than made up for it by giving him a hero’s welcome when he arrived home.
Nicolaides returned triumphant from England after collecting a Gold medal in the Men’s Skeet pairs with Christos Kourtellas and a bronze in the individual event. “I’m grateful to have been in a position to bring home two of Cyprus’ four medals and very proud,” he said.
The 34-year old London-born shooting ace lives in Limassol with his wife and two young children, and only took up the sport in 1990, although he had always been keen on game shooting. He takes time out to practice three times a week and has an employer, the Cyprus Olympic Association (KOA), which is entirely sympathetic to his sporting ambitions.
But despite his stunning success, Nicolaides’ exploits have gone largely unnoticed back home. Asked if they planned to exploit the success of the country’s medal winners by raising their profile to encourage more Cypriots to take up sport and perhaps lead to more champions, a spokesperson at KOA replied the person who would make that decision was away on holiday and wasn’t due to return till later this month.
KOA played down fears that the potential to capitalise on the success would be lost if too much time was allowed to pass, insisting the appropriate people would be contacted and their plans would be conveyed.
Next year, competition will take Nicolaides to a number of international events with World and European championships taking place in India, Italy Australia and Spain but his eye is already focused on an event that takes place a little closer to home. “I’m hoping to pick up some more medals at these events in order to qualify for the Olympics in Athens in 2004.”
The shooting events at the games took place at Bisley in Surrey rather than Manchester but still drew huge crowds that generated an excellent atmosphere. Nicolaides feels his experience of the Commonwealth Games has merely whetted his appetite for more success. “Certainly it is a little early to speculate about my prospects for a medal in Athens, but the scores I achieved (at the Commonwealth Games) are good enough to get me into a medal position at the Olympics.” He added, “I can only hope that I can reproduce my level of performance on the day.”
Nicolaides believes that the four medal haul Cyprus achieved at the games is highest at a single international event and that he is the only athlete to have achieved two medals at one games.
Cyprus was ranked 18th overall at the games, one place behind Northern Ireland but ahead of countries like Pakistan and the African nations Zimbabwe and Uganda. Australia topped the rankings closely followed by England.
Herodotos Giorgallas, who beat off stiff competition in the Men’s Rings event, achieved Cyprus’ other gold medal in Gymnastics while Charalambous Christodoulides brought home silver in Judo in the up to 73kg category.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
