After 10 Olympic Games and 36 years, Nino Salukvadze says she’s finally done.
The pistol shooter from Georgia has been ever-present at the Summer Olympics since Seoul 1988,
when she competed for what was still the Soviet Union
At the 2024 Olympics, she became the first female athlete ever to compete at the Games 10 times.
In that time, the 55-year-old has seen the Games become bigger
more professionalized and says the competition is tougher than ever.
Salukvadze considered retiring after her first Olympics 36 years ago
after she’d won gold and silver medals as a 19-year-old.
She nearly walked away in the 1990s, when she struggled to support her family financially
in newly independent Georgia. She announced her retirement after the Tokyo Games in 2021.
This time, though, she says she is done “for sure.”