Former Louisiana Tech Player Stands Up For Georgia At Olympics

I missed this in the New York Times the other day. I am very proud to see that my fellow Alumni at Louisiana Tech!! is taking a stand and was part of a Great Moment for that Country!!!!

Proud to Represent Georgia, and Stung by Russian Snub

BEIJING — Far from the warfare between Russia and Georgia, two women wearing Georgian Olympic uniforms stepped into the beach volleyball arena to play a Russian team — and soon took up an unlikely cause.

The women, Cristine Santanna and Andrezza Chagas, were born in Brazil and live there still. Georgia offered them citizenship two years ago, hoping to promote beach volleyball among children there.

As representatives of Georgia for only two years, Santanna and Chagas said they had little animosity toward their Russian opponents, Alexandra Shiryaeva and Natalia Uryadova; so little that they stepped under the net before the match and hugged them.

But after Santanna and Chagas celebrated their three-set victory, they found themselves unexpectedly dragged into a political conflict.

“We’re not actually playing against the Georgian team,” Russia’s Uryadova said through an interpreter. “Rather we are playing against Brazilian friends here.”

Shiryaeva said: “If they were Georgian, it certainly would be interesting. But they are not. They don’t know who is the president of Georgia, I am sure.”

Santanna and Chagas did not take kindly to those remarks. Although they have only visited Georgia twice, they said they understood what their victory meant.
Two days earlier, the Georgian team had met to discuss leaving Beijing.

“My first thought was, ‘Let’s go,’ because they have family back there,” Santanna said of her Georgian teammates. “My first thought was supporting them. It’s special because I feel more Georgian now.”
They stayed, however, because President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia asked them to. Santanna said she not only knew who Saakashvili was, but that he had signed her and Chagas’s passports. And Saakashvili’s wife, Sandra, who is Dutch, was once a volleyball player.

“I feel like I’m a Georgian,” said Santanna, who went to Louisiana Tech. “I have a Georgian passport and a Brazilian passport. We fought the past two years to be here. It was a very hard time. We had a lot of pressure to be here. I’m very proud today, not only because it was against Russia, because we play well out there. We won this match and we are still in the competition.”

Santanna and Chagas have adopted Georgian names for their team. Santanna is Saka, and Chagas is Rtvelo. Together, Sakartvelo is the Georgian word for Georgia.

There were no Georgian flags waving in the crowd at the Chaoyang Park beach volleyball ground, which was filled mostly with Chinese fans. A handful of Brazilians waved flags and celebrated in green and yellow wigs. But as Saka and Rtvelo — the names printed on the back of their jerseys — bounced back from a 21-10 thrashing in the first set and began to get the better of the Russian team, the crowd swung in their favor, roaring with their every point.

They won the second set, 22-20, after saving a match point at 19-20, and won the third set, 15-12. The crowd stood and cheered them at the end.

“It was very emotional,” Chagas said, in her limited English.
When asked if the war added an edge to the match, she said: “Yes. Yes.”

Levan Akhvlediani, the president of the Georgian volleyball federation, said he was disappointed that the Russians had brushed off Santanna’s and Chagas’s ties to Georgia. “It is not fair,” he said. “It is bad sport for them to say. We are one team.”

The members of Georgia’s men’s beach volleyball team, Renato Gomes and Jorge Terceiro, are also from Brazil.
When the war began, Akhvlediani said, it weighed heavily on the Georgian athletes. The judo team, he said, was one of the strongest in the world but had not won a medal in the first three days of competition.

“It seems it is on their minds, all the victims in Georgia, so it is very hard to compete here,” he said. “Even for me, as the president and leader of my team, I have slept two, three, four hours since the war started in Georgia. I am, of course, I am very happy today. I do not want to hear the comments from the Russian athletes any more. It’s important that Georgia goes to the next round and Russia goes home.”

Akhvlediani said Georgians were proud of Santanna and Chagas because they had worked hard just to qualify among 24 Olympic teams. They are ranked 22nd here; the Russians are 15th.

“Because of this, many Georgian kids will play beach volleyball,” Akhvlediani said. Santanna said she hoped the victory would bring some happiness to their war-torn, adopted country.

“I think they are very proud of us,” she said. “The whole delegation is really supporting us. That is very special, and I am very happy.

“This is better than if we play for Brazil. We have a purpose in this.”