Georgia Looks to Foreign Athletes to Boost Sports Performance

Their presence runs the gamut of sports. Australian coach Tim Lane led the Georgian national rugby team to victory over Russia in March for the top spot in the European Nations Cup; two Brazilian beach volleyball players delivered a fourth-place finish in the 2008 Summer Olympics. A Dallas, Texas native is the star of the Georgian national basketball team, and Nigerians and Brazilians play for the country's top soccer team, Olympi.

The motivation is simple: Playing for or in Georgia gives athletes the opportunity to circumvent competition at home and to gain valuable experience at a national or international level.

In exchange, foreign athletes - who often receive Georgian citizenship -- give the small country a chance to compete in a greater range of sports, Georgian sports officials state.

While the Ministry of Culture, Monument Protection and Sports could not provide exact statistics about the number of foreign or naturalized players and coaches on Georgian teams, there is ample evidence of their influence in the field.

Fifteen-year-old American ice dancer Allison Reed, who competed with Georgia at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, has become one of the best known of these newly minted Georgian citizens.

Born in Michigan, Reed has never been to Georgia and does not speak Georgian, apart from a few words. Reed became a citizen in January after she and her Georgian ice-dancing partner, Otar Japaridze, qualified for the Vancouver Games. (The International Olympic Committee mandates that all players must be citizens of the country they represent during the Games.)

It was Reed's first chance to compete in the Olympics; her brother and sister ice dance for Japan's national team.

"Georgia has helped me so much?I am so appreciative," Reed said in a telephone interview from Italy where Japaridze and she finished 22nd in the World Figure Skating Championships in March. "I consider myself a Georgian as of now. Basically, it is like skating for my home country. "

Japaridze and Reed did not win a medal at the Olympics, but the Georgian Olympic National Committee is not complaining.

Committee First Vice-President Dr. Ramaz Goglidze states that athletes like Reed represent a chance for Georgia to gain experience in international sports events outside of its traditional presence in sports like judo, wrestling, boxing and weight-lifting.

That strategy paid off in the 2008 Beijing Games when Georgia's male beach volleyball team - made up of Brazilian-born Renato Gomes and Jorge Terceiro -- finished fourth.

To date, five foreign-born athletes have competed on the Georgian Olympic team. Goglidze would not state the cost of their participation, but noted that the Committee had paid "a very small amount of money" for expenses for Reed -- only event tickets and costumes, he said.

Outside of the Olympics, international recognition has also come in basketball and rugby.

The Georgian national basketball team rose to Division A in the 2009 Eurobasket championship, a Europe-wide competition, thanks in part to the efforts of Tyrone Ellis, a six-foot-four 32-year-old shooting guard from Dallas who also plays for the Spanish professional team Cajasol Sevilla.

Coaches can play a role, too. Australian Tim Lane, who transferred to Georgia from France's Rugby Club Toulonais in 2008, has led Georgia's national rugby team to victory against the Russians for three straight years.

They are now preparing for the World Cup in 2011.

Foreign coaches, Lane commented, bring different "mentalities" and ideas to the team.

"We have tried to introduce a few different mechanics of playing the game and the players have adapted well to that," he said. "I think it has been a successful mix."

Many of Georgia's rugby players also compete on professional teams outside their home country.

Often, players who come to Georgia gain a similar sort of learning experience.

Rustavi's Olympi team is Nigerian-born soccer player Emmanuel Eloh's third foreign team since he left Nigeria five years ago. Twenty-year-old central defender Eloh played for both India and Bahrain before landing in Georgia this year on a two-year contract.

While he said that the language barrier makes practices "confusing" at times, Eloh hopes that his experience with Olympi will help him compete for a slot on the Nigerian national team next year when he turns 21.

Back home, he said competition is high and there are few chances for a player with little experience. Playing for Olympi provides a chance "to have more experience," he added.

Often, that can prove a mood-boosting experience for Georgia as well.

Georgia's defeat of Russia in women's beach volleyball at the 2008 Olympics came from two Brazilian-born players known as "Saka" (Christine Santanna) and "Rtvelo" (Andrezza Chagas) - in Georgian, "Sakartvelo" or "Georgia." The pair's victory came on August 13, 2008, one day after the completion of Georgia's five-day war with Russia. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].