Dimitris Karydis: Bebis who became « father » champions

The « babe » of Greek swimming grew up with 74, but from his hands he grew up both this particular race and the part of the liquid track to his beloved Olympiacos.

Dimitris Karydis is by far the leading man of Greek swimming who has reached both as a swimmer and as a coach, leaving his mark in the sport indelible.

Having started swimming at Olympiacos in 1960, he served a life of this great club and through his hands some of the greatest talents sprang up. With his bird being of course Elli Roussaki.

The man who broke the Panhellenic record six times in the 100 meters free, the first to go down one minute and left it at 56.09 in the Balkans of Sofia in 1972 when he broke it for the 6th time in his career (no other athlete has done so many times).

Another nine Pan -Hellenic record had scored in his beloved butterfly (100 meters) while in all the races he had reached 25 Panhellenic records, comfortably in the top ten recordings of all time and those at a time when conditions were clearly more difficult. He also had 20 Pan -Hellenic victories and many awards in Balkan Games and European Youth (European Champion).

He began swimming in 1960 at Olympiacos, in which he completed a whole life as an athlete and as a coach. It could not be different, since his father, Kostas Karydis, was an administrative executive in Piraeus from 1956 to 1967 from the post of Secretary General. He was the third child of the family of Kostas and Helen, after Antonis and George had preceded.

From Zappeion and Lucic to Gianniotis and Gemelos, a journey full of perseverance, love for sport and red -white faith

Difficult times

« The conditions in the 1960s were very difficult, as there was only a swimming pool in Zappeion swimming all the clubs in the summer. In the winter there was nothing! From the period in 1962-1963 the swimming pool was created at the Naval Cadets School in Piraeus, where the athletes were swimming in the winter only three times a week, ”he said a few years ago in an interview with the JOC magazine.

Dimitris Karydis swims free and butterfly and was distinguished in the 100 meters in these two styles. He stopped in 1973 at the age of 22. He stopped young as a swimmer and just as young began his coaching at the age of 25. He took over as the first coach at Olympiacos until 1990. Later he continued his coaching in the Heraklion Swimming Group, Aigaleo, Arion Glyfada, returned to Olympiacos, Petersburg, Panionios and the Paphos Athletic Club in Cyprus. Today she enjoys life and watches swimming in the long run. He has five children and always remains loyal to Olympiacos.

« The Olympics is due to the madness of some people in the past and to the current administration that this champion wants and supports it in every way. In the past we had the madness of 10 people, now the Board of Directors is contributing the most to be the champion of Olympiacos, ”he says.

In 1972 he participated in the Munich Olympics and participated in two European championships in 1966 in Utrecht (27th in the 100 meters butterfly) and in 1970 in Barcelona. The World Championships began in 1973 a year after his retirement as a swimmer, hence he had no participation.

In 1965 he was the one who first descended for the first time (58.8) to the 100 meters free to follow in 1977 in Sandanski Kostas Koskinas (Olympiacos) with the first Panhellenic record with electronic timing (55.88) and 28 years later (March 6, 2005). The 50  » barrier (49.51) breaks.

The newspapers of the time spoke of the « child miracle » of Greek swimming, and later described him even as the « pool of the pool » for what he offered in the sport.

Nikos Gemelos, successor to Karydis at Olympiacos, counts over 25 championships and dozens of international athletes. By an assistant coach in 1992, the soul of Olympiacos’ domination in the wet track and the man behind the course of Spyros Gianniotis

Zappeion

« My father’s brother had a cottage in Vrilissia and we went up there with my mother there in the summers to visit them. And the bus passed through the Panathenaic Stadium and Zappeion. And I was looking there in the lights and the world and life, and I was asking my mother, and she replied, « There they are swimming in. » So I started « he had revealed in an interview to Andro.gr where he had talked about the great Kostas Preca who did not first dive in Zappeion, but elsewhere.

« I saw him on the rocks of Piraeus diving, and we were neighbors, opposite our houses, in Pigada near Aristotelous. And he and others jumped from the Terpsichori platform. They jumped over … houses, there were no rocks below. But the other water had suddenly impressed me in ’58 -’59. And then there was neither information nor anything. At some point, however, perhaps because of my father who has since insisted on the amateur sections, track and swimming, and he didn’t want much – a lot with football, Olympiacos decided to make a new start to polo and swimming. And they brought a Yugoslav coach, Milo Lucic. In which both the pole and swimming were given. And Lucic came, and saw all the swimmers over fourteen – fifteen years.

And he says, « A baby? A little kid, guys?  » And my father tells him, « I have three. To bring you the two, the other is still very small « … » How is it, that is « ? « Nine ». « I want him! » Lucic turns around and tells him. « Bring them and others, but I like the little kids. » He stood out and brought me up.  »

And polo and swimming

In the Pan -Hellenic Championships then everyone was swimming: first swimming, then playing a pole, then … they were back again. Suspensions and … conditions.

Anyway, so we started: We left Piraeus, with a van from Saint Constantine who was putting Olympiacos to bring us Athens.

And so, after a couple of years, let Baxevaneli Katoula, and Teris Koutoumanis, and Nikos Papadakis. And here in ’64 Koula Iliopoulou, and from ’65 onwards the other big batch. Dina Spyropoulou and other kids had come. And Panathinaikos Lombard and Sotiriou also had, and the big ones began, the well -known, ”Dimitris Karydis remembered in the interview.

He thinks that if he had not gone to America he would have reached too high as he would not have stopped swimming at such a young age. But there he shaped his character and turned another person to start work as a coach.

« The love and the coach I, from one point on. It was something inside me. Because as an athlete I was lazy, at some point I understood what I had lost. How much more could I have done. And what they told me in America after, in Physical Education and Training lessons, I had experienced in my seventeen. The visualization, the visualization of the race, I did not know it without knowing it: I was sitting and dreamed of myself swimming – and tearing them down the Panathinaikos, « he said in the same interview on Andro.gr.

With 25 Panhellenic records and participation in the Olympics, Dimitris Karydis wrote history in Greek swimming both as an athlete and as a teacher

Gemelos, the continuer

His successor to Olympiacos is Nikos Gemelos, born on May 19, 1968 in Hagia Sophia of Piraeus, who began his swimming career with Olympiacos in 1972. In 1987 he stopped and in 1992 took over as an assistant coach in his heart team.

Initially he took over the academies of Olympiacos and over the years has taken over the men’s team and that of women, winning among other 25 Greek Open Championships for the last 27 years. And of course he linked his name to the great Spyros Gianniotis whom he highlighted.

In total, Nikos Gemelos was involved in 51 of the 65 Olympic championships as a swimmer, assistant coach and first coach!