Rhythmic and Artistic(General) Gymnastics

The appearance of rhythmic gymnastics in Florina was made by PAS Florina in the 1980s with Stavroula Vassiliadou as coach and then with Kiki Kaskamanidou, with whom in 1998 the start of the classes in the Evxinos Club Florina (ECF) took place. In June 1999 the ECF organized its first annual sports event called Patoulidia in honor of the Olympic champion Voula Patoulidou. After 2001, the rhythm sections were taken over by Sophia Georgiadou, Domna Giannota and Angeliki Soubasi. In 2004, the rhythmic competition coach Fani Kousipetkou took over the departments for five years. During these years, the rhythmic athletes exceeded 250 and became athletes at the competitive level in national championships by winning national medals.
In 2008 Kousipetkou Fani moved to Crete and was taken over for the next seven years by Soubasi Angeliki with Marilena Tsapari and Eleni Vrantsi.
Fani Kousipetkou returned to Evxinos Club in 2016 with assistants Ritsa Tasouli, Irini Tsartsitalidou and Rita Tsesmetzi.With the arrival of Fanis, the old athletes, who had now grown up but returned to the table, were reunited.A highlight was the participation of the ECF with these athletes in the General Gymnastics Festival in Thessaloniki, where they won two cup prizes. General Gymnastics is a new sport of the Hellenic Gymnastics Federation (HGF) which consists of a combination of elements of rhythmic acrobatics, gymnastics and dance, i.e. all the sports cultivated by the HGF. In the program presented with all these elements, a selected theme is added.
In 2023, the HGF’s competition section participated in the HGF’s General Gymnastics sport competitions in Thessaloniki and Athens (Hellas Gym for Life Challenge), where it won the most important prizes-cups.
Patoulidia continues to be every June a spectacular sporting institution for the city of Florina and the indoor gymnasium of Florina is always packed with people to enjoy this extravaganza.

TEXT: Fani Kousipetkou