Zurab Talakvadze

Georgian handball was at the crossroads and the new reality is just overwhelming: the Georgian Handball Federation is rocking and the results are coming. Since five years ago the respected federation changed its main directions and the whole line up, handball has become one of the most successful team sports in Georgia. Led by a former National Team player and now a president of this federation Vakhtang Meipariani, this team not only gave the real hope of improving, this team just had a bold statement – we are for real!

And AIPS has a legit representative in this team: Levan Salukvadze not only is a former youth NT player, but he is one of the most influential figures in a modern handball as well. Nowadays, Salukvadze, a member of a great Georgian and international AIPS team, is a vice-president of Georgian Handball Federation and is doing his best to improve the Georgian handball in all areas. In a parallel world, Levan is also one of the co-founders and leading producers of the most successful Georgian Sports TV teams, SILK TV Sport, which owns an exclusive rights to many international sport events. So, he is up to some many important challenges, but now we concentrate on handball.

Levan Salukvadze: The handball is back on top in Georgia. The country, that was represented by some great individuals of handball such as Jemal Tsertsvadze and Aleksandr Anpilogov, is off to a great restart. Georgia (unfortunately) was missing on qualifying for almost every big international events and now, we are taking a part in the European Championships for a second straight term and this is not a maximum for this team.

Some modern stars? Well, the vice-president has an answer here as well.

L.S: Giorgi Tskhovrebadze is GNT’s new star, a real highlight machine, who is turning on the tables and bringing spectators back. We had a transitional period and sadly, lost the World Championships qualifying games to Israel. Our federation is thankful to (now former) head coach Tite Kalandadze, who guided the NT to two European Championships, and is set to be replaced as a head coach of this team, so we are looking for a new blood, but once again, we all would like to thank Tite for his work and wish him all the best in his respected career. So, Georgia will have a new head coach for the upcoming Euro qualifiers and we think, that Tite will be replaced by a foreign specialist.

Georgia was effective during those Euro campaigns and Georgia should come back strong.

And the future?

L.S: We are concentrating on the upcoming generations and the young ones are coming. We have a potentially upcoming U 16-team in boys, who should step by step be upgraded to a NT status. We also see a big potential in the girls U 16-team and this team should be a main basis for a women future NT, that is practically nonexistent nowadays. We had some needed international games in Spain, where girls started with a loss, but rebounded well and won four games in a row. Boys also had some remarkable wins and all in all, the transformation into a NT level is going well. I think, from this standpoint, the future of Georgian Handball is bright.