08/08/08. Georgia, The Olympic War.

The Olympic Wrestling tournament in Beijing should be interesting. Russia is one of the dominant powers, but Georgia has a long history of the sport, which it is very proud and possessive about.
Georgia does tend to specialise in the more physical Olympic events.

"Vano Grikhurov, the head coach of the Georgian National Weightlifting team, said that the sportsmen are in good shape, and that as they are highly skilled at judo their chance of winning is high. “I think that Georgia once again will get gold from Olympic Games this year,” said Grikhurov.

Their boxing team also has hopes.
It is not very hard to imagine the atmosphere when a Georgian hopeful meets a Russian in combat. It is to be hoped that this will happen, not for the headlines or sick spectacle of two innocent sportsmen performing a puppet war for our amusement, but to help settle the old question of the role of politics in sport.
If sport really is the panacaea preached by the blazers, Russia Vs Georgia for the Olympic boxing title will be a triumph of pure human endeavour and mutual respect over squalid, materialistic political squabbling. If not they will kick the living shit out of each other.
Perhaps the failure of rugby to be included in the Beijing games isn't such a bad thing after all.
Beijing Olympics 2008