Saba Kumaritashvili of Georgia slides during the men's singles luge competition at the Beijing Winter Olympics on February 6, 2022. Photo: VCG

Saba Kumaritashvili was far from winning a medal after Sunday evening's luge competition at the Beijing Olympic Winter Games in Yanqing. The 22-year-old's story, however, is not only just about ranking, but a "dream come true" after his luger cousin's tragic death in the Vancouver Winter Olympics. 

In 2010, Saba's cousin Nodar Kumaritashvili was getting ready for the next day's competition. Yet instead of making history of becoming the first Georgian luger to compete at the Olympics, Nodar died in training after he flew out of his sled and hit a metal pole hours before Vancouver 2010 officially opened.

His cousin's unexpected accident hit the headlines around the world for many days as Nodar was the first athlete who died in Olympic training or competition since 1964. And the death forced the organizers in Sochi, Russia, to reevaluate the standard of their luge tracks before the Games in 2014.

Saba was only 9 when Nodar died, as Saba said that he didn't "remember much of him, only moments," in an interview with CNN on Sunday. 

His decision to come to Beijing for the competition has worried many of his family members. Nodar's mother Dodo Kumaritashvili said that she had wanted to kill herself more than once after her son's sudden death, The New York Times reported in 2014. 

Nodar had a baby daughter and Dodo came to his house and took care of her granddaughter every week.

Still, Saba didn't waver about the Olympic decision and attended ­Friday's opening ceremony. 

"I wasn't afraid," he said in the interview after his second run on Saturday evening. "After Nodar, I didn't want luge to die in Georgia. I wanted to keep it going."

Saba and his cousin were born in a family with a long line of luge athletes. Their great ­grandfather, Aleko, laid the groundwork and oversaw the construction of the country's first luge track in the 1970s. 

Saba's grandfather took part in the Junior European Championships. And Saba's uncle, Nodar's father, won a USSR youth championship. 

In Sunday's competition, Saba was the only Georgian luger in the event, and finished 31st out of 34 in the men's singles. But he was proud of himself, and happy. 

"Very happy," he said, smiled broadly, and pumped his fists to celebrate his success. "I've done what I needed to do."