Georgian National Olympic Committee launches surgery crowdfunding for Olympic champion David Khakhaleishvili

The Georgian National Olympic Committee has launched a crowdfunding campaign for raising funds for a necessary heart surgery for the country's 1992 Olympic champion David Khakhaleishvili, who is in "critical condition" in a Tbilisi hospital.

Diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease affecting the heart muscle and its ability to supply blood, the judoka who became the first athlete to carry a flag of independent Georgia at an Olympic Games opening ceremony requires a "complex and expensive" surgery abroad, the GNOC said.

Khakhaleishvili, 49, is under medical attention at the Emergency Cardiology Centre in Tbilisi, with the surgery representing "the only solution" for saving the wrestler who won three European Championships gold medals between 1993-1996, in addition to other honours. The surgery and rehabilitation costs are estimated at $250,000.

The crowdfunding campaign is accepting donations to the TBC Bank account number GE18TB7618245166300002, with David Khakhaleishvili to be listed as the formal recipient of the donation.

Khakhaleishvili became the first Olympic competitor from Georgia to have the newly independent country's anthem played in honour of his win in the global event, when he claimed the men's heavyweight category gold medal in judo at the Summer Games hosted in Barcelona.

Competing under the banner of the Unified Team, competitors from 12 former Soviet republics including Georgia still earned their medals on the backdrop of national flags and anthems at the 1992 Olympics.

The Georgian wrestler went on to earn the top step of the podium in two categories at the 1993 European Championships in Athens and one in the 1996 competition in The Hague, also earning a silver and a bronze at the World Championships in Hamilton in 1993 and another bronze in Chiba in 1995. The medals are part of his wider collection of silverware from world- and European-wide contests in the 1990s.