Georgian national judo team is preparing for Tbilisi traditional tournament. Irakli Uznadze head coach of the team gathered experienced, who did not compete at national championship due to different reasons and medal winners of Georgian championship 2012.
The expanded staff of the team is staying at “Golden Palace” located in Digomi and preparing for the tournament every day. The main trainings are at the academy named after Shota Chochishvili, today the main coach took the sportsmen to The Turtle Lake.
“We started trainings several days ago. 36 sportsmen participated in this training. All the candidates of the team participated in this training. We chose the hotel located near the gym specially, to avoid standing in tiring traffic jams after long trainings”- said Uznadze to “World Sport”.
According to the schedule of the team, candidates of the team will wrestle at Paris Grand Slam besides Tbilisi international tournament (February 9-10), Dusseldorf Grand Slam (23-24 February) and Warsaw European championship (2-3 March). There is a Turkish Grand Prix (30-31 March) in this schedule.
“Supposedly we will wrestle with two staff at European championship, though a lot of thing must be made clear in interior competition. We are looking for Tbilisi tournament. Traditionally champions and prize winners will be found out at Tbilisi Sports Palace. I will name 28-man staff in a week”-stated Uznadze.
As for organizational details of Tbilisi tournament, Mamuka Kizilashvili the vice president of the federation talked about it with “World Sport”, who was observing the training with the president of federation Davit Kevkhishvili. “We expect very interesting and tense tournament. After two-year pause Japanese delegation will arrive in Georgia. Founders of judo take two staffs in Tbilisi. Supposedly Germany also will represent the main team, which is the result of negotiations with the federation of this country. According to the final information, 17 countries showed desire of participating in this tournament”- stated Mamuka Kizilashvili.

After the training Lasha Shavdatuashvili Olympic champion made a short comment:” after an operation and rehabilitation, I have started training for fifteen days. But with making agreement with the coaches I decided not to hurry and the first tournament where I will wrestle will be Paris “Grand Slam”-told Lasha Shavdatuashvili to “World Sport”.
Otar Maglakelidze