This was not how Soso Palelashvili dreamed he would return home from the International Judo Federation's Grand Prix tournament in Dusseldorf, Germany at the weekend. Instead of registering a sporting achievement on the road to the London Olympic Games, the dispirited judoka landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport after an extremely embarrassing incident in which he was suspected of trying to steal a tube of toothpaste from a German supermarket and was disqualified from competing.
Palelashvili says this was not the case. "A day before the competition I borrowed some money from my coach in order to buy us a few goods for myself," he told Haaretz. "I took everything I need [from Israel], such as energy bars, because they only help us pay for things directly related to the competition. I cannot buy shampoo, for example, with this money. I took maybe 150 euros with me to buy a few personal things, including toothpaste, with my own money, so I put it in my pocket so as not to confuse the items.
"I placed all the things connected to the competition on the [checkout] counter. Then somebody from the store saw the toothpaste in my pocket and the workers started shouting, 'You're a thief! You're a thief!' That's strange - why would I want to steal something worth 80 cents?" he laughed bitterly.
"I didn't understand what they wanted from me," continued Palelashvili, who immigrated to Israel from Georgia four years ago. "After about a quarter of an hour of questioning they released me because they realized it was all a misunderstanding. I don't know English and couldn't understand them. These things happen - I'm an athlete, not a thief."
The Israel Judo Association, and especially its head, Moshe Ponti, did not accept his version of the "misunderstanding" and decided to send Palelashvili home without competing.
Says Palelashvili, "I told [national team coach] Oren Smadja that he should check the matter and there's no way I would steal, but he was too busy with the tournament and told me to first go back to Israel. We actually get along very well, and had some good conversations before this happened."
Smadja reportedly paid a 400-euro fine to free Palelashvili from jail.
Palelashvili suffers from an image that can hardly be called clean. In the past he's made the wrong kind of headlines because of fights with teammates, anxiousness on the mattress and complaints to the Judo Association about the lack of vacation days.
"All athletes can be jittery, but everyone looks at me as if I'm a bad person," he said. "I earn only NIS 2,500 a month from judo. It's hard for me even to travel by bus. What can I do with this sum? Occasionally I want to go out in the evening - that's only natural, because I need to unwind. I'm jittery during training because I'm constantly thinking about my children, who aren't with me."
Palelashvili's frustration was evident on his arrival at the airport. "I haven't slept for the last few nights," he said. "It was a very important match for me. This was one of the last competitions [before the Olympics] and I worked hard to get there. I cannot understand why they didn't let me compete. Next week there's a World Cup tour tournament and in six weeks the European Championships. I just hope they'll let me compete and have a chance of reaching the Olympics."
