Kvitelashvili was born on 17 March 1995 in Moscow, Russia.[2][3] His mother, a former competitive skater, and father are both originally from Tbilisi, Georgia.[4]
As of 2018, he is a student at the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism in Moscow.[4]
Skating career
Early years
Kvitelashvili began learning to skate in 2000.[5] His first coach was Elena Proskurina at CSKA Moscow.[4]
In 2013, Kvitelashvili was selected to compete on the ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP); he placed fourth, 1.62 points behind bronze medalist Mikhail Kolyada, at his first event, which took place in September in Košice, Slovakia. The following month, he won the bronze medal at the JGP event in Ostrava, Czech Republic, having scored 17.76 points less than silver medalist Alexander Petrov and 16.7 more than Daniel Samohin. His senior international debut came in December, at the 2013 Winter Universiade in Trento, Italy, where he finished fifth.
2014–2015 season: Grand Prix debut
Making his ISU Challenger Series (CS) debut, Kvitelashvili placed fifth at the Lombardia Trophy in September 2014. In November, he competed at the 2014 Rostelecom Cup, replacing the injured Kolyada; he finished twelfth at the event, the first senior Grand Prix (GP) assignment of his career. After placing eighth at the 2015 Russian Championships, he was sent to his second Winter Universiade and finished seventh at the competition, held in February 2015 in Granada, Spain.
Kvitelashvili made his first international appearance for Georgia in December 2016 at the Santa Claus Cup in Hungary. He obtained the minimum technical scores required to compete at all ISU Championships and won the gold medal, ahead of fellow Georgian Irakli Maysuradze, by placing first in both segments. Ranked tenth in the short program and fourth in the free skate, he finished sixth overall at the 2017 European Championships, held in January in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
In January, Kvitelashvili placed twelfth at the 2018 European Championships in Moscow. The following month, he served as Georgia's flag-bearer during the opening ceremony at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.[8] He qualified for the free skate in men's singles and finished twenty-fourth overall.
2018–2019 season
Beginning the season at the 2018 Ondrej Nepela Trophy, Kvitelashvili placed fourth in the short program and third in the free skate, narrowly finishing fourth overall, less than half a point behind Keiji Tanaka. At his second Challenger event, the Finlandia Trophy, he placed fifth in the free skate and third in the free, taking the bronze medal overall. His first Grand Prix event of the season, 2018 Skate America, saw him place eighth overall after coming eleventh in the short program and seven in the free skate. At the 2018 Rostelecom Cup, he placed second in both programs to win the silver medal, his first Grand Prix medal.[9][10]
Kvitelashvili won the bronze medal at 2020 European Championships after placing fourth in the short program and third in the free program.[13] Only 0.03 points away from winning the silver medal that went to Artur Danielian, he said he had "dreamed for a long time about this." He was the first Georgian man to win a medal at the European Championships.[14]
With the pandemic continuing to affect international travel, the ISU opted to run the Grand Prix primarily based on geographic location, and Kvitelashvili was assigned to compete at the 2020 Rostelecom Cup. He won the short program with a clean short program scoring slightly under one hundred points, in what was considered something of an upset.[16] Fourth in the free skate, he took his second silver medal from Rostelecom. He said afterward that he was "happy how everything came together, even though not everything worked in the free skating."[17]
Kvitelashvili began the Olympic season at the 2021 CS Lombardia Trophy, where he won the bronze medal.[20] At his first Grand Prix assignment, the 2021 Skate Canada International, he placed last in the short program but fourth in the free skate, rising to sixth place overall.[21] At his second assignment, the 2021 Rostelecom Cup, Kvitelashvili placed second in the short program with a new personal best score of 95.37, only 0.44 points behind segment leader Kazuki Tomono of Japan. He was third in the free skate, albeit with a new personal best, but this was sufficient for him to rise to first place, claiming his first Grand Prix gold medal. He said, "I have not really realized what I achieved here, but I think it will come in time. I will take great memories from this competition."[22] He finished the fall season with sixth place at the 2021 CS Golden Spin of Zagreb.[23]
Named to the Georgian Olympic team for the second time, Kvitelashvili began the 2022 Winter Olympics as the Georgian entry in the men's short program of the Olympic team event. Despite a rough triple Axel landing, he placed fourth in the segment, securing seven points for the Georgian team.[25] Team Georgia did not advance to the second stage of the competition and finished sixth.[26] Turning to the men's event, Kvitelashvili skated a clean short program and finished fifth in that segment.[27] Eleventh in the free skate, he finished tenth overall.[28]
Days after the Olympics concluded, Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, as a result of which the International Skating Union banned all Russian and Belarusian skaters from competing at the 2022 World Championships. In addition, both Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu were absent due to injury, and as a result, the field was considered more open than typically the case.[29] Kvitelashvili was able to attend, but his Russian coaches were not. He placed seventh in the short program after stepping out of his quad Salchow, but rose to fifth in the free skate and finished a career-best fourth overall, 5.35 points behind bronze medalist Vincent Zhou of the United States.[30][31]
On June 5, it was announced that he had retired.[33] He subsequently appeared in the Japan Open later that fall, as part of Team Europe, coming sixth of six men competing.[34]
