Sports
August 3, 2025
Youth Olympic Festival: Medals of Georgian Judokas and Taekwondo Athlete
Youth Olympic FestivalJudoTaekwondoMedalsSports
The capital of North Macedonia, Skopje, hosted the Youth Olympic Festival, where Georgia was represented by 36 athletes in 9 sports. Overall, our athletes won a total of 7 medals: 3 silver and 4 bronze.
During the first 4 competition days, young judokas claimed 3 bronze and 1 silver medals. On the podium were Saba Bolkvadze, Vakhtang Chkheidze, Giorgi Mumladze, and Vasil Gamzardashvili (silver).
On the 5th day, bronze medalist Ioane Abalaki (+90kg) became a bronze medalist after losing a quarterfinal match against Czech Melichar Skoda, but then achieved 4 consecutive victories through the repechage and claimed bronze by defeating Serb Petar Novakovic.
Giorgi Zurabashvili (-90kg) was close to winning the gold medal, dominating towards the main victory, but lost in the final match against Lithuanian Maius Genys and became the silver medalist.
The silver medalist was taekwondo athlete Nika Gogoberidze (-73kg), who defeated Bosnian, Hungarian, Spanish, and Lithuanian opponents on his way but lost in the final match against Turkish rival Bugra Kosgungonul with a score of 1:2, becoming the only athlete outside of judo to win a medal in the Georgian team.
On the concluding day of the tournament, Georgia switched to the mixed team championship in judo. Our team, comprised of men and women, consisted of Mariam Tsurtsumia, Vakhtang Chkheidze, Nana Gulbiani, Giorgi Mumladze, Nini Dzagania, and Ioane Abalaki.
Our judokas started the competition excellently: they easily defeated their Lithuanian (4:0) and Ukrainian (4:1) counterparts. However, after a loss to Serbia (1:4), they continued to fight for the bronze medal against France. The matches were extremely tense, and given that 6 encounters failed to determine a winner, Nini Dzagania (+63kg) had to compete in a second match in the “Golden Score,” unfortunately, where she could not achieve victory. It should be noted that in the mixed team championship, bronze medalist Ioane Abalaki performed excellently, having held 3 matches, winning all three.
