TBILISI, March 15 (Itar-Tass) – Georgia has no plans to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and the Georgian national team will certainly take part in them, Leri Khabelov, the president of the National Olympic Committee said in an interview published by the Versiya newspaper Friday.
Khabelov himself has been a notable wrestler in the past. In 1992, he won Olympic gold at the Summer Games in Barcelona.
“Georgia is a member of a big global Olympic family and it recognizes the Olympic Charter,” he said. “It’ll take part in the 2014 Games in Sochi.”
A boycott of the Games “would deal a blow to the Georgian athletes but wouldn’t have any major impact either on Russia or on the Olympic movement.”
“The previous authorities were doing everything in their power to bring about Georgia’s abstention from the Sochi Games while the new political leadership and the incumbent members of the NOC have done everything they could do to assure this country’s presence there,” Khabelov said.
“These efforts have been supported in the international arena,” he said.
Khabelov cited the preliminary data suggesting that seven Georgian athletes might be entered in the 2014 Olympic tournaments.
Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili made public assurances in January that “this country will take part in the Sochi Olympic Games at all costs.”