Projo Sports Blog

By Lynn Zinser
The New York Times

BEIJING - Far from the warfare between Russia and Georgia, two women wearing Georgian uniforms stepped onto the sand at the Olympic beach volleyball venue to play a Russian team - and soon took up an unlikely cause.

The women, Cristine Santanna and Andrezza Chagas, were born and live in Brazil. They became Georgia's only women's beach volleyball team two years ago and felt so little animosity toward their Russian opponents, Alexandra Shiryaeva and Natalia Uryadova, that they stepped under the net before the match and gave them hugs.

But by the end of the match, when Santanna and Chagas celebrated their three-set victory over the higher-seeded Russians with hugs and cheers for each other, they found themselves in the middle of a country conflict they did not anticipate.

"We're not actually playing against the Georgian team," Uryadova said through an interpreter after the match. "Rather we are playing against Brazilian friends here."

Shiryaeva expressed a similar sentiment.

"If they were Georgian it certainly would be interesting," she said. "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 that remark. Even though their Georgian experience is all of two trips there, they said they understood what their victory meant to the Georgian people. Two days earlier, before the Russians announced they would stop the bombings, the Georgian team met and talked about leaving the Olympics.

"My first thought was, `Let's go,' because they have family back there," Santanna said, despite the fact that she would go home to Brazil. "And my first thought was supporting them. It's special because I feel more Georgian now." President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia asked the team to stay. Santanna said she not only knows who Saakashvili is, but that he signed her and Chagas' 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 Saka Rtvelo are the Georgian words for Georgia.

There were no Georgian flags being waved in the crowd at the Chaoyang Park beach volleyball ground, which was filled with mostly Chinese fans. A handful of Brazilians waved flags and celebrated in green and yellow wigs, despite the stifling heat. But as Saka and Rtvelo - as it said 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, 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 emotional edge to the match, she said: "Yes. Yes."
Georgia offered citizenship to Santanna and Chagas two years ago, hoping to promote beach volleyball among children there, said Levan Akhvlediani, the president of the Georgian volleyball federation. Georgia's men's team, Renato Gomes and Jorge Terceiro, are also from Brazil.

Akhvlediani said he was disappointed that the Russians brushed off Santanna's and Chagas' ties to Georgia. "It is not fair," he said. "It is bad sport for them to say. We are one team."

When the war began, Akhvlediani said, it weighed heavily on the Georgian athletes. The judo team, he said, is 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 become one of the 24 qualifying teams for the Olympics. They needed two ninth-place finishes in the final two qualifying events in Europe to climb into the top 24. They are the 22nd-ranked team. The Russian team was seeded 15th.

"Because of this, many Georgian kids will play beach volleyball," Akhvlediani said.

Santanna said she hoped their victory would bring some happiness back to the war-torn 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."

 Tags  beach volleyball Georgia Olympics Russia

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