Inga Gurgenidze: biography, age, results, Georgian national team, Junior Grand Prix
Inga Gurgenidze: biography
Inga trains in Kazan; Due to her age, she is always considered one of the best figure skaters in Tatarstan. Her biggest start in her Russian career was the national junior championship in Saransk: Inga finished 15th out of 18 participants. But the figure skater was noticed by Evgenia Medvedeva, who commented on this tournament.
“Do you know what sentence I remembered? When I was little and Tatyana Anatolyevna Tarasova also commented on one of my performances, she said: “Zhenya, you are my green fish!” Here it is, the green fish! So bouncy. And I want to point out how touching skating is. I don’t know, there’s something about her still-childlike skating that touches the soul.”
After the failure in Saransk, Gurgenidze began training even harder. And at the end of last season, Inga became just the 32nd skater in the world to land a triple axel – history was rewritten in the Tatarstan Cup final. For the Ultra-Si, the judges gave a generous +2.67 GOE.
Inga Gurgenidze and the Georgian national team
Shortly before the start of the Junior Grand Prix series, it was announced that Gurgenidze would compete for Georgia from this season. The Russian Figure Skating Federation did not attach importance to the transfer of a talented athlete to the national team of another country. Why when we have a huge queue of strong girls?
No quarantine was required – Inga never took part in international competitions under the Russian flag. The debut in the championship series took place on the stage in Riga.
“I think I only ran like Nikitin for one season. And then I decided to take my father’s surname – he is Zurab Gurgenidze – and for a year I have been acting under a new name.
Adults were responsible for changing their sports citizenship; My job was horse riding. Now I came to my first international tournament (the junior stage of the Grand Prix in Riga) and competed for Georgia for the first time.
Surprisingly, for some reason I’m not nervous at all; In previous competitions I was much more nervous.”
She failed on her first attempt because of the prices; In the Latvian capital, the skater took 4th place. But the competitions in Enya were historic: Inga was the first Georgian to stand on the podium of the Junior Grand Prix in 17 years.
Inga Gurgenidze was very lucky: she changed her sports citizenship in time and now represents Georgia in the competitions. Otherwise, like other Russian juniors, she would have been content with national competitions.
- Discipline: Women’s Singles
- National team: Georgia
- In the ISU ranking: 81st place
- Birthday: April 23, 2009
- Place of birth: Russia
- Place of residence: Kazan RUS
- Height: 146 cm (according to ISU)
- Club: RSSHOR of figure skating (Russia, Kazan)
Competition results
Season 2023-2024
- 9th place, ISU JGP Budapest 2023, 159.85 points
Season 2022-2023
- 9th place, Junior World Championships 2023, 172.50 points
- 1st place, Dragon Trophy & Tivoli Cup 2023, 177.82 points
- 2nd place, Bosphorus Cup 2022, 171.05 points
- 3rd place, 7th stage of the ISU Grand Prix Juniors 2022, 190.52 points
- 4th place, 3rd stage ISU Grand Prix Juniors 2022, 180.28 points
Season 2021-2022
- 10th place, Fed Cup Final 2021-2022, 167.44 points
- 15th place, Russian Junior Championships 2022, 173.43 points
- 3rd place, All-Russian competition “Federation Cup” 2021-2022, 4th stage, 195.92 points
The president of the Georgian Figure Skating Federation, Maka Giorgobiani, told Novosti-Georgia that she had been interested in Inga for a long time – long before the girl began to perform complex elements.
“In Russia there are a lot of teenagers who jump triples, but I don’t invite them to my team. It is no secret that figure skaters of Georgian origin are the first to join the Georgian national team.” says Giorgobiani.
In recent years, the former champion of Georgia in figure skating has assembled the Georgian national team from foreign players. The team’s most famous figure skaters, Maurice Kvitelashvili and Anastasia Gubanova, achieved the best results of their careers under the Georgian flag. And Georgiy Reviya, Maria Kazakova, Luka Berulava and Karina Safina, who were selected as juniors, were not at all known in major sports before joining the Georgian national team.
