Greek basketball star Giannis Antetokounmpo is to change into the primary black athlete to bear the flag for Greece on the Olympics.
The 2-time NBA MVP will carry the flag alongside race walker Antigoni Ntrismpioti in Paris on 26 July.
The Greek males’s basketball staff certified for its first Olympic Video games since 2008, after beating Croatia in entrance of a house crowd in Piraeus on Sunday.
The 29-year-old, who was drafted by Milwaukee Bucks in 2013 and led them to the 2021 NBA title, was in tears after the sport.
“It is an unimaginable feeling,” he mentioned after qualification. “Since I used to be a child I at all times needed to play within the Olympic Video games.”
His journey to change into Greece’s Olympic flagbearer hasn’t been a simple one.
Antetokounmpo’s dad and mom emigrated to Greece from Nigeria. For the primary 18 years of his life, Antetokounmpo couldn’t journey outdoors Greece and was successfully stateless, having no papers both from Greece or Nigeria. He was ultimately issued Greek citizenship in Could 2013, lower than two months earlier than the NBA draft.
Antetokounmpo spoke about his childhood in a latest interview with ESPN.
“I used to promote issues since I can keep in mind myself, since I used to be six or seven years outdated.
“I used to be at all times out of residence attempting as a lot as I might to assist my mother and pop by promoting watches, glasses, CDs, DVDs, and all the pieces I might discover. I used to be doing that till I turned 17 as a result of I needed to. I had no different alternative. Once I was promoting all these issues, I used to be the perfect vendor.”
However even after changing into a star within the US, Antetokounmpo encountered racism at residence.
In a TNT documentary in 2020, he mentioned: “Greece is a rustic of white folks, life may be troublesome for somebody with the color of my pores and skin. Or of one other nationality. You go to loads of neighbourhoods, and also you face loads of racism.”
There was a backlash to his feedback from some in Greece, together with Konstantinos Kalemis, then-coordinator for refugee training within the Malakasa camp north of Athens, who used a variety of racial slurs towards Antetokounmpo and was fired consequently.
He has additionally confronted discrimination from authorities officers.
In 2018, Adonis Georgiadis, the present well being minister, repeatedly mispronounced his identify and falsely claimed he had been born in Africa as an alternative of Greece.
Antetokounmpo can be one of many first athletes to open the Video games, as Greece – the birthplace of the Olympics – historically leads the parade.
Spyros Kapralos, president of the Greek Olympic Committee, mentioned there was “unanimity” within the resolution for Antetokounmpo to hold the flag in Paris. He added that each flagbearers will “raise our nation excessive”.
Antetokounmpo hasn’t publicly commented but, however merely posted a video to X exhibiting highlights from the qualifying marketing campaign with the phrase “Greece”.
