Georgian athletes geared up as 2020 Winter Youth Olympics start
The Georgian team departed for Lausanne on Wednesday and will be taking part in fixtures throughout the competition. Photo via Georgian National Olympic Committee.
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There will be Georgian athletes among the nearly 1800 competitors showing up in Lausanne for the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics starting on Thursday, with members of the team competing in four disciplines at the global event.
Over the next two weeks, 10 young Olympians from the country will represent their country among 79 nations in figure skating, ski jumping, alpine skiing and luge.
Five of those in the Georgian team will appear before sports fans following figure skating fixtures in individual, pair and dance sections.
Alina Urushadze is in the roster for individual events, with Luka Berulava and Alina Butaeva picked for pairs and Yulia Lebedeva-Bitadze and Mikhail Kaygorodtsev set to go on the rink in the dancing category.
The best pictures from the #Lausanne2020 #YouthOlympics torch???? relay this morning. pic.twitter.com/lOJ9gctZKB
— Lausanne 2020 ❄️ Winter Youth Olympic Games ???????????? (@lausanne2020) January 8, 2020
Two more competitors flying the Georgian flag will be seen facing the route and their opponents in alpine skiing. Nino Kurtanidze and Nodar Kozanashvili have been selected to showcase their skills at the Swiss-hosted tournament.
The two will be part of the competition in slalom, giant slalom, super-g and alpine combined, set to run between January 10-15.
Esmeralda Gobozova will also be stepping into her skis, however in a different discipline of ski jumping, with the 16-year-old appearing in women's individual fixtures.
Luka and Lasha Mtchedliani round off the Georgian selection for the Olympic event, with the men's singles entry for luge awaiting the two.
The Winter Youth Olympics will run between January 9-22, with the full calendar of fixtures available at the official website here.
Four Georgian athletes will be competing at the upcoming PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games, where a record number of medals will go up for grabs for participants starting this Friday.
Georgia's leading alpine skier Nino Tsiklauri launched her competitive season with a place on the podium of an international ski federation giant slalom event in Speikboden, Italy on Monday.
Georgian duo of Maria Kazakova and Giorgi Revia earned spots at the next Winter Youth Olympic Games and entertained crowds at the World Figure Skating Championships in Zagreb with a performance of a Georgian traditional dance on ice over the weekend.
Georgian figure skaters Alina Butaeva and Luka Berulava earned top honours at the onloing Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne on Wednesday as they claimed gold in a Mixed National Olympic Committees team event.
Georgian figure skating pair of Maria Kazakova and Giorgi Revia, has claimed its first historic gold in the Junior Grand Prix Final in Turin, Italy. "We came out knowing that there was nothing to lose, that we worked not to be afraid of something", Revia said
The Georgian National Olympic Committee has launched a crowdfunding campaign for raising funds for a necessary heart surgery for the country's 1992 Olympic champion David Khakhaleishvili, who is in "critical condition" in a Tbilisi hospital.
17-year-old Georgian figure skater Alina Urshadze has qualified for the Olympic Games scheduled to be held in the Chinese capital of Beijing next year. Urushadze, who participates in the 2021 World Figure Skating Championship in Stockholm, Sweden, has meanwhile taken the 20th place in the international competition.