Apostolos Parellis

Apostolos Parellis (Greek: Απόστολος Παρέλλης,born July 24, 1985) is a Cypriot track and field athlete specializing in discus throw.)[5] at the age of 22, Parellis has been the islands top discus thrower, improving his personal best another eleven times.Coming from a sporting family, as a youngster Apostolos watched his father Lakis[6] win many national titles at Rally driving and especially in the 2WD category.Apostolos Parellis’ first major sporting success came in 2002 at the age of 17, when he took 4th position in the discus event at the 2002 Gymnasiade[8] at Caen, France.By winning gold in the European Team Championships Second League, he helped Cyprus achieve promotion, while he also won first position in the Pancyprian Games.The season ended in October at the Commonwealth Games at Delhi, India, where Apostolos narrowly missed the podium,[16] by finishing 4th.But despite not coming close to his personal best, Apostolos qualified[24] for the 2013 Athletics World Championships in Moscow, Russia, in August and took 19th position[25] with 59.84m.Earlier, in June Parellis won silver[26] at the Games of the Small States of Europe in Luxembourg with a throw at 59.11m.Following his strong start to the season, Apostolos was invited for the first time in his career to compete at an IAAF Diamond League meet.Before travelling to China, Parellis competed at his second IAAF Diamond League in his career, in London on July 24, again taking 7th spot with a best throw of 61.07m.[37] A few days earlier, on July 11, the Cypriot thrower won first spot at the Madrid IAAF World Challenge with a 60.79m.[38] In the qualification on August 27, Parellis threw 64.41m., the fourth best of the day, claiming a spot in the final[39] of the discus event.[40] Following a pre-season training camp in South Africa, Parellis made his season debut with a meeting in Athens, Greece, where he threw 62.95m.throw during[42] an Amateur Athletic Association of Cyprus meeting in GSP stadium in Nicosia, just 23 centimeters shy of the Rio 2016 qualification mark.Parellis spent April at a training camp in Portugal,[43] in preparation for his participation in the IAAF Diamond League series as well as for the European Championships and Olympic Games.A few days later, at the "Heraklion 2016" meeting in the Crete city, Apostolos managed to break his own national record, throwing 65.69m.