Greece will not compete in the European short course swimming championships starting this week for the first time in 16 years due to financial problems, Hellenic Swimming Federation (KOE) president Dimitris Diathesopoulos said on Wednesday. Read for instance Yahoo! Sports and Eurosport
“We had decided in the summer that we would not attend the European event this year, mainly due to financial reasons,” the Diathesopoulos said.
“We programmed this according to our budget constraints and the fact that the World championships are so close.
“Of course we are disappointed that we will miss out for the first time since 1996 after so many successive appearances, but these days a lot of things are happening for the first time in Greece’s history.”
