TBILISI, Georgia, November 15 (R-Sport) – The Georgian government is expected next week to ditch any plans made under President Mikheil Saakashvili to boycott the Sochi 2014 Winter Games in neighboring Russia.
Saakashvili had urged the world to consider snubbing the event in the wake of the 2008 Russian-Georgian war.
But he has softened his position in recent years, calling on the Georgian Olympic Committee to decide of its own accord, and new Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said last month that Georgia should send its athletes to the Games.
"The question of participating in the Olympic Games is under consideration,” said Zurab Abashidze, Georgia's temporary envoy to Russia. “The decision will be made next week.”
The war resulted in Georgia's breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia declaring independence with Russia's backing, and ended diplomatic relations between Moscow and Tbilisi.
Last month, Ivanishvili's opposition coalition seized a parliamentary majority in elections. The billionaire businessman is a bitter political rival of Saakashvili and is known to favor the restoration of relations with Russia.
The first Olympic Games held in Russia in 1980 were boycotted by 65 countries in protest at the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
