Georgia’s victory may not have been on the field of battle is a source on national pride nonetheless. I can’t even imagine how tense it was on the judo mats when Georgia’s Irakli Tsirekidze took on Russia’s Ivan Pershin in the 90kg middleweight Judo semi-finals. The end conclusion was a Georgian victory en route to their second Gold Medal in this year 2008’s Beijing Olympic games.
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It is impressive that Tsirekidze and Pershin competed as their countries were in the midst of implementing a peace agreement for their little proxy war over the South Ossetia region. For Georgia, hopefully the two gold medals provided a little respite from their political affairs, of where the latest is alleged that the Russians are disregarding the cease-fire and moving towards the capital city of T’bilisi.
Ah well with politics… You can take away south Ossetia but you can’t take these medals away. And much like a rose… Victory by any other name is just as sweet!
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