2022 marks the 100th anniversary of Georgian basketball. The basketball century can be divided into different stages, about which we write separately in our project „The Road of Georgian Basketball to Eurobasket 2022″. This road goes through the European Championships – in 1947 Otar Qorqia won the continental championship and for decades after that Eurobasket did not pass without Georgians.
Otar Qorqia won the European Championship three times in a row, and was replaced by Guram Minashvili in the Soviet team in the mid-1950s. Under his captaincy, in 1962, Dinamo Tbilisi won the Champions Cup.
There was a transition period between the era of Otar Qorqia and winning the most prestigious cup of the clubs, which gave history a number of legendary stories and basketball players. Today’s rubric will tell you important stories from this very section of history.
How three Georgians defeated five Latvians
Minashvili instead of Qorqia
„Otar Qorqia was the whole team, when he set off, no one could stop him. He was 190 cm tall, – recalled the coach raising many generations, Tamaz Oqruashvili, – In the following generations, tall centers appeared and basketball changed a bit. It was necessary to deliver the ball to the center, in addition, one player could not decide the fate of the match alone any more. It was at this time that Guram Minashvili appeared in the national team of the Soviet Union and Dinamo, who was the engine of the team – he used to make all his teammates play. I do not remember him losing the ball, which is very important for the point guard. Minashvili was very strong physically, he could stop an opponent of any level while playing in defense.“
The Georgian chain in the USSR team did not break: in 1955, at the Eurobasket, three-time European champion Otar Qorqia competed as usual, but his team lost to host Hungary in the semifinals and won a bronze medal. The legendary center refused to play for the national team and soon ended his career.
He was replaced by Guram Minashvili from the Georgians in the Soviet team, who repeated the achievement of Qorqia – winning the European Championship three times (1957, 1959 and 1963). Nor did the Eurobasket 1961 go without a Georgian – Vladimer Ugrekhelidze won the championship together with the Soviet team. At the 1960 Olympics, Minashvili-Ugrekhelidze’s duo was the one who won a silver medal.
Gold lost due to politics
Guram Minashvili’s collection is decorated with the gold medal of the 1959 world championship, as well as Guram Abashidze’s collection. However, if we search the internet, we will find that Brazil has won the World Cup. Minashvili’s autobiographical book will clarifies the situation:
„In 1959, we defeated the United States and Brazil in Chile, but we lost the political battle with Taiwan. This country was not recognized by the USSR, was considered part of China, and we were sent to the World Cup on the condition that we would not play against Taiwan. In the second group stage we beat everyone and we would still become champions, even if we lost to this team 0:100. However, when the referee threw the ball as a sign of the beginning of the game, the Taiwanese caught him, scored a two-pointer and the match ended – our team did not enter the court,” – Guram Minashvili recalled with regret.
FIBA awarded the championship to Brazil due to the absence of the USSR from the match. Minashvili and Abashidze, along with other players, were presented gold medals made by the Soviet authorities after returning to Moscow.
I have never seen such a thing
In 1959, an even more sensational story happened, which is from the category of Georgian basketball legends: On August 10, the Georgian national team led by Giorgi Avalishvili and Mikheil Kekelidze made a sensation at the II Spartakiada Basketball Tournament of the USSR in Moscow – In the third overtime, three Georgians (Valeri Altabaev, Guram Abashidze and Tamaz Kakauridze) defeated the three-time European champion Latvia.
The legendary journalist Nodar Gugushvili also attended the meeting, he described vicissitudes of the meeting in the newspaper Lelo. Here are some excerpts:
„What happened on the court was not just a sports fight. It was a boundless pursuit of victory. Three against five. Such a proportion in basketball is the same as one against three in boxing. Three, fought with self-sacrifice and dedication against the five. The opponent was hypnotized. G. Abashidze, T. Kakauridze and V. Altabaev ended the fight in such a way that they had not even feel it’s approach and the feeling of victory came to them much later.
…The third overtime started with Ugrekhelidze receiving the 5th foul and leaving the court. There were four players left in the Georgian team: Abashidze, Moseshvili, Kakauridze and Altabaev.
Latvians are ahead. The score goes like this: 82:84, 83:84, 84:84, 86:84, 87:84, 88:84. Latvians score another ball, Georgia is still ahead – 88:86. Krumin and Moseshvili leave the court.
The Latvians bring in the fifth player. We ran out of reserve, but it isn’t slowing down the fighting ability and the strength of our team, even slightly. The game is still going on with two-way attacks.
The opponent starts a new attack, but the referee whistles and the time runs out – 88:86.
…The game ended and we turned to the honored coach of the Soviet Union, Stefan Spandarian, who answered briefly: “I have never seen anything like this.”
After 62 years, Guram Abashidze remembers the legendary controversy with the same emotion: “I am still surprised how we, the three men defeated the team full of Baltic stars. Don’t think I’m bragging – but this is from the realm of fiction“.
