By The FINANCIAL — Skeet sports was introduced in Georgia in the 30s of the past century by the members of the Hunters Union of Georgia. First competitions were organized in Didube district of Tbilisi, at the old Hippodrome.
In the 40s the hunters Union, under the management of Conrad Tsumakuridze and Vladimir Burjanadze, the first shooting federation was established. Boris Osipov was elected as the chairman of a newly established organization.
In 1947, Mushtaidi Park was used as a target shooting place.
In 1970 Shooting club at the Tbilisi Sea started working.
In later years, club activities expanded to other regions of Georgia including Abkhazia, Ajara, Ozurgeti, Zugdidi, and Kutaisi, Shooting sports disciplines were included in Dinamo and Locomotive clubs.
During that period Georgian sportsmen won important competitions. In 1938, Jabakhadze and Avalon won the USSR competition, in 1947 – Sarkisov became champion, in 1950 – Boris Gobarev, later Boris Antonov, David Tsagareishvili, Carlo Daraselia, Yuri Saganelidze, Zurab Machkhaneli, and Vili Alaverdov became USSR champions.
Machkhanov was a member of the USSR Olympic team several times.
In 1954, he won the Warsaw Competition. Later he worked as a trainer.
Tamaz Imnaishvili is a Georgian sports shooter. He competed in skeet shooting events at the Summer Olympics in 1980 and 1988 for the Soviet Union and in 1996 for Georgia.
Georgian skeet sportsmen are quite successful nowadays as well.
In January 2023, Georgian sports shooters claimed gold and silver medals at the International Shooting Sport Federation Grand Prix in the Slovenian town of Ruse.
Mariam Prodiashvili and Tsotne Machavariani won the qualification stage with 575 points before defeating their Armenian rivals Elmira Karapetian and Benik Khlghatyan with a score 16:14, earning the gold.
Olympic and international skeet is one of the ISSF shooting events. It has had Olympic status since 1968, and, until 1992, was open to both sexes. After that year, all ISSF events have been open to only one sex, and so women were disallowed to compete in the Olympic skeet competitions. This was controversial because the 1992 Olympic Champion was a woman, Zhang Shan of China. However, women had their own World Championships, and in 2000, a female skeet event was introduced to the Olympic program.
In Olympic skeet, there is a random delay of between 0 and 3 seconds after the shooter has called for the target. Also, the shooter must hold his gun so that the buttstock is at mid-torso level until the target appears.
Another difference with American skeet is that the sequence to complete the 25 targets in a round of Olympic skeet requires shooters to shoot at doubles, not only in stations 1, 2, 6, and 7, as in American skeet, but also on 3, 4, and 5. This includes a reverse double (low house first) on station 4. This last double was introduced in the sequence starting in 2005.
With her bronze in women’s skeet shooting at the 2016 Rio Olympic games, Kim Rhode became the first American to medal in 6 successive Olympic games. Her prior Olympic medals were for trap shooting in 1996, 2000, and 2004 and for skeet shooting in 2008 and 2012.
Nino Salukvadze is a nine-time Olympian and has won medals on three occasions. At age 19 and competing for the Soviet Union at the 1988 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal in the women’s 25-metre sporting pistol competition and silver in the women’s 10-metre air pistol competition. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, competing for Georgia, she added to her tally with a bronze medal, also in the 10-metre air pistol event.
At the 2016 Summer Olympics, Nino and her son Tsotne Machavariani were the first mother-son duo to compete in the same Olympics, representing Georgia in the pistol events.
At age 52, Nino competed in her ninth Olympic Games at the 2020 Summer Olympics, becoming the first female athlete in history to do so. And ahead of her record-breaking appearance, Salukvadze was given the honor of being one of Georgia’s flag bearers for the 2020 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony, for the second time.
We visited Nino Salukvadze at the newly restored Shooting Club at Tbilisi Sea.
“Our club was founded 75 years ago, during the Soviet period. Since its establishment, Georgia had many Olympic champions, including Imnaishvili, Sabedashvili, Kvatadze, Manjgaladze. Georgians were leaders among soviet clubs. They were the majority in the Soviet Olympic team”, said Nino, who works as vice president at the Georgian Olympic Association.
“In the 90s it was very difficult to sustain the club. Everything was ruined including the building and equipment.
In later years, new management managed to restore club life. In 2018 Mr. Tamaz Somkhishvili came into the management. He was attracted by the fact that Shooting Sports, along with martial art sports, was one of the main sources of Olympic medals for Georgia.
In 2018, Tamaz Somkhishvili managed to build the modern, international sports facility,” she said.
Q. What kind of facilities are available for sportsmen?
Today we are ready to host a high-level international sports event. Facilities can accommodate international teams with up to 50 members. We also offer training to our young members and amateur sportsmen. But we are focused on the development of professional Olympic shooting disciplines.
Representatives from many countries are interested in the Georgian club. The only problem that is not fully resolved is the lack of professional judges.
Q. Is it expensive to maintain a shooting club?
– shooting sport is an elite but expensive sport throughout the globe. Commonly, sportsmen buy shooting clay targets or ammunition. But the Olympic committee, the Federation of Shooting Sports, and the local Municipality provide significant support as well.
Q. What are the chances of Georgia in international shooting competitions?
– Currently, we have seven sportsmen who participate in European games.
Q. How important is the development of shooting sports for the country
– In all countries, this sport is considered a strategic discipline. Even in Switzerland, where neutrality is one of the main principles of Switzerland’s foreign policy, shooting sports are promoted on a state level.
Q. What should be done in order to host the Shooting championship in Tbilisi?
– International Shooting Sport Federation is an active supporter of our club. But to hold the championship event in Georgia, we need the government involved in the organization.
“I feel it is proof of the hard work and struggle that I have been doing for almost all my life,” Nino told TOI in an exclusive interview after her match.
While Nino has lived a substantial part of her life preparing for the Games, the rest of it has been spent on crossing more serious hurdles.“Being born in Georgia, I have seen war after war. It hasn’t been easy to live in a country always troubled by wars. I feel the Olympics have given me the strength to face the challenges. After each participation, I have emerged a wiser person,” she said.
My father told me that his heart and soul belong to Georgia and he would be happy if I stayed here,” said Nino.
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