Nino Salukvadze

Nino Salukwadze medal table
Marksman
Soviet Union Georgia
Olympic Summer Games
gold	1988	Sport pistol
silver	1988	Air pistol
bronze	2008	Air pistol
World championships
gold	1989	Air pistol
silver	2002	Air pistol

Nino Salukwadze ( Georgian ნინო სალუქვაძე , English Nino Salukvadze ; born  February 1, 1969 in Tbilisi , Georgian SSR , Soviet Union ) is a sports shooter from Georgia . As an Olympic champion, world champion and multiple European champion, she is one of the most successful sports shooters today.

Nino Salukwadze shoots right-handed and has been active in sport shooting since 1985. Between 1985 and 1988 she was European junior champion a total of four times in both sport pistol shooting and air pistol shooting . In 1989 she won the European Championships in Zagreb in the sport pistol discipline for the first time in the adult division. A year later she became the European air pistol shooting champion in Arnhem , and in 1993 she won the European championship in shooting with the sport pistol in Brno . She was vice European champion in 1999 in Bordeaux (sport pistol) as well as in 2005 in Tallinn and 2008 in Winterthur (both air pistol). At the European Championships in 1991 in Manchester , 1996 in Budapest and 2001 in Pontevedra (each air pistol) and 2003 in Plzeň (sports pistol) she took third place.

In 1989 she became world champion in shooting with an air pistol in Sarajevo . In the same discipline, she took second place at the 2002 World Championships in Lahti . When she first took part in the Olympics at the 1988 Games in Seoul , she won a gold medal in the 25-meter sports pistol and a silver medal in shooting with an air pistol from a ten-meter distance , while still starting for the Soviet Union . Twenty years later she won at the 2008 Games in Beijing the third place in air pistol shooting behind the Chinese Guo Wenjun and Russian Natalia Paderina . During the award ceremony, she hugged Natalja Paderina to express, together with the Russian, the wish for an end to the fighting between Russia and Georgia over the controversial Caucasus region of South Ossetia , which was taking place at the same time as the games .

Nino Salukwadze is a psychologist by profession . She is married and has two kids.

Web links

• Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: Athlete Biography - Salukvadze, Nino ( Memento from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Profile on the official website for the 2008 Games (English, with picture)
• Nino Salukwadze in the database of the International Shooting Sport Federation (English)
• Zeit Online: The Couples of the Week - Nino Salukwadze and Natalia Paderina, Schützen Short article about the silver and bronze medal winners in Beijing 2008 with photo