13 February 2010, 20:00
Caucasian athletes take part in Vancouver Winter Olympics
National teams of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan take part in the 21st Winter Olympiad in Vancouver, which opened on February 12; and the national team of Russia includes three representatives of the Southern Federal District (SFD).
The Olympic team of Armenia includes skiers Sergey Mikaelyan and Christine Khachatryan, and mountain skiers Arsen Nersisyan and Ani Serebrakyan (US citizen of Armenian origin, now performing for Armenia).
The flag of Azerbaijan will be defended in one sport - mountain skiing - by two civil "legionaries", who have Azerbaijani citizenship - Sedrik Nots, 35, a native of Switzerland, and an Italian woman Gaye Bassani-Antivari, 31.
The sportive honour of Georgia was to be defended by eight athletes; however, just a couple of hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympiad, sledge racer Nodar Kumaritashvili got into a fatal accident.
On decision of the Olympic Committee of Georgia, the second Georgian sledge racer Levan Gureshidze was withdrawn from the race because of the death of his compatriot. As reported by the "Georgia Online", now the national team of Georgia has six athletes remaining: bronze medallist of European Championships-2010 in figure skating Elena Gedevanishvili, figure skate dancers Otari Dzhaparidze-Alison Read, and mountain skiers Nino Tsiklauri, Yason Abramishvili and Dzhaba Gelashvili.
The national delegation of Russia includes 175 athletes to perform in 15 sports, as the "Vedomosti" newspaper writes. Southern regions are represented by Alexei Voevoda and Margarita Ismailova (both from Sochi), and Olga Fyodorova, who represents both Moscow and Krasnodar Territory, as the "Live Kuban" reports.
