Georgian National Wrestling Federation has a new leader. At the presidential election, held at Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, delegates elected veteran wrestler two times world champion, 5 times Europe champion and 2 times Olympic champion Luka Kurtanidze.
There were 110 delegates in the hall which is for 70 people and delegates used to go out for a normal breathing in the corridor.
Election president was the main issue on an agenda, where the participants were Kurtanidze and Tamaz Gegeshidze. Election lasted for three hours.
Kakha Getsadze the former president of the federation read his report and the people who were attending this meeting considered his working in the federation satisfied. Then they discussed some issues which must be changes in federation. One of the topics which they discussed were the fact that the government presented the federation the gym named after Levan Tediashvili located in Digomi , now known as judo academy named after Shota Chochishvili.
Veteran wrestlers applied to Getsadze for this topic. The former president honestly said: unfortunately, then we let the positions, we did not show our resistance against judokas relevantly and as a result it happened so.
Afterwards, the candidates had speeches and in case of supporting, the promised doing the best. Close voting found out the president, three vice-presidents and general secretary.
Dimitri Gelashvili became vice-president in free-wrestling style; Temur Kazarashvili was elected with 67 votes in Greek-Roman style. Edisher Machaidze received 87 votes.
The most difficult and tense was electing general secretary, where Malkhaz Jorbenadze lost with only one voice with Giorgi Lomidze- 47:48.
As for the main electing, 103 delegates made their choice. 56 of them voted for Kurtanidze, 45 ones supported for Gegeshidze. During the announcing the results, there were a lot of people in the room.
“Thanks delegates for support and for giving so big responsibility. I promise you that since today all the professionals will be appreciated and we will use their experience relevantly. Wrestling will become such proud thing what was the before. Wrestlers will do their best for making fans happy. Once again thanks a lot for support and appreciation, I believe that we will achieve unity”- stated Kurtanidze.
As for Gegeshidze, he mentioned that the election was between two honorable candidates. The delegate congratulated his opponent the victory and stated that it is the main to think all together about hosting European championship.
Otar Maglakelidze
