Sofia: Georgia's Olympic aspirations were left in tatters for the second consecutive Games on Friday with the death of one of their luge athletes on the day of the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremony.
Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, was making his final practice slide on Friday morning when he lost control at 90mph and was launched over the rim of the track before smashing into a pillar. He later died in hospital.
Less than two years earlier, on the first day of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the former Soviet Republic again saw their Olympic enthusiasm extinguished when Russian troops poured across the border in a brief yet bloody war, leaving athletes and team officials stunned.
"During the summer Olympics in Beijing, Georgia was invaded by Russia but the team persevered and, despite that fact, stayed, competed and won several medals in Beijing," Georgian Sports and Culture Minister Nicolos Rurua told reporters on Friday.
"Georgian people are freedom-loving people and we are a young democracy trying to solidify our statehood," he said.
The similarities with that fateful day in August 2008 are eery.
Georgian team officials again had said their participation was in doubt, after a Russian offensive to repel Georgian troops battling separatists in the Georgian rebel territory of South Ossetia clouded their first competitive day in Beijing.
They eventually stayed on for the same reasons and a reconciliatory gesture between a Russian and a Georgian medal-winning athlete on the medals podium became one of the Games' iconic moments.
However as a result of that brief war and ongoing tensions with Russia, Georgia may also miss the next winter Olympics.
The country has called for a boycott of the 2014 Games which will be held in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, only a stone's throw from the Georgian border.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, February 13, 2010, 13:37