Mikheil Chkhenkeli: "The role of sports and physical activity is paramount in raising a healthy new generation"
During his speech in Parliament, Mikheil Chkhenkeli, Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of Georgia, spoke about the importance of professional and mass sports for youth.
“This year, at the forum held in Monaco on the initiative of the international organization ‘Peace and Sport’, the main theme of which was ‘Education for Sustainable Peace through Sport’, I spoke about the importance of developing both professional and mass sports — pre-school physical education, school sports and physical education, university sports, and the ‘Sport for All’ direction.
Indeed, the role of sports and physical activity is of utmost importance in raising a healthy new generation and ensuring sustainable peace. At the same time, sport is one of the powerful means for promoting the country. Therefore, the promotion of sports is one of our top priorities.
Sports funding is increasing from year to year. The results are also evident: according to the data for the 11 months of 2019, the number of medals stands at 1,215, which is a record figure in the history of Georgian sports. Of these, 446 are gold.
For the first time in history, we have 6 world champions in Olympic sports within a single year: Lukhum Chkhvimiani (Judo), Beka Lomtadze, Geno Petriashvili (Freestyle Wrestling), Nugzar Tsurtsumia, Lasha Gobadze (Greco-Roman Wrestling), and Lasha Talakhadze (Weightlifting). Eter Liparteliani became the first Georgian female judoka to win the world and European youth championships.
Ana Khunjua is the first European Championship medalist in boxing (among youth).
Special attention was paid to mass sports. The mass sports event ‘European Week of Sport’ was held in Tbilisi and 62 municipalities. This includes up to 100 sports activities in about 40 disciplines, with the number of participants reaching up to 35,000.
Preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are in an active phase, for which Georgian athletes have and will have maximum support from the state.
The state provides special support to parasports, where we have achieved great success recently. Champions of parasport games, similarly to Olympic champions, have been granted a monthly scholarship of 1,000 GEL,” stated Mikheil Chkhenkeli during his speech in Parliament.
