High School Track & Field / State Championships : Georgia On Her Mind : Ika Eliashvili Makes Like Countryman Saneyev, Winning City Section Triple Jump and Going to State Meet

Although Ika Eliashvili of Birmingham High was born and raised in a nation that produced Viktor Saneyev, the greatest triple jumper of all time, she didn’t compete in the event until this season.

Eliashvili (say e-lee-a-Shhh-vee-lee) was a sprinter from the age of 7 in the country of Georgia until her sophomore season at Birmingham last year, but she didn’t triple jump until Coach Scott King and assistant Sandy Shair urged her to this season.

“I jumped 33 feet in practice the first time I tried it and Coach Shair was like, ‘Oh that’s so good. You’re going to do so good,’ ” Eliashvili said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah right.’ But soon I jumped 35 feet and then last week I jumped 37-5 and I won City and I’m going to state.”

Eliashvili, the only child of parents who fled civil-war torn Georgia in the former Soviet Union 3 1/2 years ago, is amazed she qualified for the state championships at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento, where she will compete today in a qualifying round.

“This, going to state and winning City, is incredible,” she said. “My first year jumping and I don’t know anything about how to jump. I just jump. . . .

“I’m getting there, but I don’t know really what to do. But next year I’ll do much better. You’ll see.”

This year has been pretty good for someone who was the No. 3 or 4 sprinter at Birmingham during her first two years at the school.

After bounding 32-6 to win a meet against Kennedy in mid-March, Eliashvili produced winning marks of 33-2 against Granada Hills on April 4 and 34-6 1/2 in the Van Nuys Rotary Invitational at Birmingham the next day.

That remained her best until April 28 when Eliashvili jumped 35-2 against Taft to pace the Braves to a 1-3 finish in the meet’s final event and to a 62-61 upset victory.

She followed that with a first-place mark of 34-11 against Cleveland in the final dual meet of the season May 2 before posting winning--and school-record--marks of 36-5 in the Northwest Valley Conference finals on May 16, 36-7 1/2 in the City Section preliminaries on May 22 and 37-5 in the City championships May 29.

She was so dominant in the City finals that all five of her jumps exceeded the 35-10 best of second-place Nina Onwubere of Banning.

“She’s a real technician,” King said. “She’s real easy to coach and she absorbs the technical stuff like a sponge.”

Eliashvili’s ability to learn has helped her compile a 3.5 grade-point average and enabled her to speak Russian, Georgian and English. She is also taking Spanish.

“I get so confused sometimes,” she said. “I don’t know what to speak when or with who. When I’m with my mom, I speak Russian. When I’m with my friends, I speak English. Then when I’m in class it’s Spanish, so I’m all confused.”

Eliashvili says that with an infectious laugh and a smile that can light up a room, but it wasn’t long ago that her smile was one of confusion because she didn’t understand English.

“She’s come a long way in a very short time,” King said. “At first, those smiles were because she didn’t understand what people were saying. But because of her abilities and how hard she tries, she has made a lot of friends.”

Genetics have also played a part in Eliashvili’s success in the triple jump.

Her father, Gia, co-owner of a Russian-style supermarket in Encino, was Soviet junior champion in the hammer throw in 1973 and ’74 and had a best of 216-6 before his career was cut short by a back injury.

Her paternal grandfather, Otar, was the Soviet Union champion in the long jump in 1946 and his wife Klara won the Georgian national title in the 800 in 1954.

Gia has been friends with Saneyev since 1968, the year Saneyev won the first of three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the triple jump while competing for the Soviet Union. Saneyev capped his career with a silver-medal winning performance in the 1980 Games in Moscow and was honored by Track & Field News as its male athlete of the decade for the 1970s.

Eliashvili remembers her father talking about Saneyev when she was a child and she even met him when she was working out at a track in her hometown of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. But she only recently began to appreciate her father’s stories.

“He use to tell me that he was really, really good,” she said. “And I was like, ‘OK. OK.’ ”

Eliashvili enjoyed her childhood in Georgia, a nation of 5 1/2 million bordered by Russia to its north and the Black Sea to its west. But after the Soviet Union was officially dissolved on Dec. 25, 1991, various political and ethnic factions began to war for power in the country.

Gia Eliashvili was a government official and he said through a interpreter that it wasn’t uncommon for the children of well-to-do families to be kidnapped and held for ransom.

“There were a lot of criminals,” he said. “It was not safe.”

Gia, his wife, Nana, and Ika moved to Hungary in September of 1993 and then to the United States in February of 1994.

Gia wanted Ika to remain a sprinter this season, according to King, but he has been supportive of her since she switched to the triple jump.

“You couldn’t have found a prouder father than him at the City finals,” King said. “He was so happy when she won.”

Ika was ecstatic about her 37-5 jump, but she hopes to top that mark this week and to jump far enough next year to earn an athletic scholarship to a four-year university.

“In the state, I just want to do my best,” she said. “This is my first year so I’m not going to do really that good. Next year, maybe I can place [in the top six] in state. . . . Maybe I can jump 40 or 41 feet. We’ll see.”