Georgia’s 76-year-old Henri Kuprashvili wins 6 gold, 1 silver at Winter Swimming World Championships
Henri Kuprashvili, a 76-year-old Georgian swimmer, claimed six gold and one silver medal at the Winter Swimming World Championships in Slovenia on Tuesday. Photo: video grab
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Henri Kuprashvili, a 76-year-old Georgian swimmer, claimed six gold and one silver medal at the Winter Swimming World Championships in Slovenia on Tuesday.
With his achievement in the 75+ age category, Kuprashvili has become the first Georgian world swimming champion in the country’s independent era.
The success follows the athlete’s breaking of a Guinness record last year in his crossing of the Dardanelles with his hands and feet bound, in the traditional Colchian swimming style.
In the effort, Kuprashvili covered 12 kilometres in three hours and 15 minutes, from the port of Eceabat on the eastern shore of the Gelibolu Peninsula, to the village of Kepez, located south-west from the starting point and on the opposite side of the strait.
Kuprashvili is also a historian and a Full Professor of Political Sciences at the Georgian Technical University.
Georgia's David Abesadze set a new national record for the 50-metre freestyle swimming category and claimed the bronze medal in the process at the Akropolis Grand Prix in Greece on the weekend, with the Georgian squad claiming a team gold and setting their own record in the 4x100-metre freestyle run.
Georgian synchronized swimmers have earned 22 medals in the Synchro Latvia Cup 2019 championship in Riga, Latvia.
A Guinness world record holder and internationally recognised Georgian swimmer is refusing to participate in the 2016 Winter Swimming World Championships after facing visa issues by host country Russia.
Georgia has triumphed at the 2015 Biathle and Triathle World Championships and earned dozens of medals.
Georgia Barbarians, the rugby club of the American state, will visit Georgia after the governing bodies of the state and the country agreed to form closer ties on Monday.
A 13-member team of injured Georgian servicemembers will feature in the Air Force Trials - a Paralympic-style competitive event starting this month in the United States - for the first time, the Ministry of Defence said on Monday.