Nino Salukvadze set to make Olympic history by securing quota spot for Paris 2024
The 54-year-old secured a quota spot for Georgia in the women's 25m pistol event at the 2023 European Games. She would become the first athlete in history to qualify for 10th consecutive Olympics.
Georgia's shooting legend Nino Salukvadze secured a quota spot for her country in the women’s 25m pistol event at the 2023 European Games in Wroclaw, Poland, on Monday (26 June)
The 54-year-old finished just outside the podium behind winner and Rio 2016 champion Anna Korakaki, with Antoaneta Kostadinova winning silver and Doreen Vennekamp taking bronze bronze.
However, reaching the gold medal final was enough for the nine-time Olympian to punch a ticket for Paris 2024 as Greece, Bulgaria and Germany had already secured a spot for the next Games.
Salukvadze, who is currently the top-ranked Georgian 25m pistol shooter in the ISSF Olympic qualification rankings, would become the first athlete in history to qualify for a 10th consecutive Olympics, equalling the overall participation record set by Canadian equestrian jumper Ian Millar in 2012.
She is already the woman with most Olympic appearances (9), after qualifying for Tokyo 2020.
Nino Salukvadze: Writing more Olympic history at Paris 2024
In a career spanning almost 40 years, Salukvadze has won every title in the sport.
On her Olympic debut for the former Soviet Union at Seoul 1988, she came away with women's 25m Pistol gold and 10m Air Pistol silver. Twenty years later in Beijing, the shooter clinched bronze for Georgia in the 10m Air Pistol event, grabbing headlines for embracing her Russian rival Natalia Paderina at a time when the two countries were at war.
She also stood atop the podium at World and European Championships, as well as in World Cup Finals. Her most recent victory came at the ISSF Grand Prix in Osijek, Croatia, earlier this year in January.
In a recent interview with Olympics.com Salukvadze revealed she was 'optimistic' about her chances to qualify and she explained that her father Vakhtang and her son Tsotne convinced her to go for a tenth Games: “It’s not important for me, it’s important for my country. Georgia is really small and 80% of the world population don’t know where it is. So maybe if I achieve this, they will know about my small paradise country.”
The three-time Olympic medallist would be 55 at the Paris Olympics. “Age doesn’t mean anything in shooting and I don't want to think about it. You just need to hold a gun and you don’t need a lot of physical training," she said.
“Our sport is 80% psychological, you need to be able to control your thoughts.”