Russia clashes with Georgia at Olympics as row breaks out after beach volleyball showdown

Russia and Georgia fought each other on the beaches today  -  with the bikini-clad underdog achieving an unlikely victory.

But the Olympic beach volleyball clash was marred by the bitterness between the two countries.

At first, the contest promised to be a sporting affair.

Both teams shook hands before the Georgian team crossed under the volleyball net and Russian players Natalya Uryadova and Alexandra Shiryaeva exchanged hugs with Georgia's Andrezza Chagas and Cristine Santanna.

However, the Russians revealed their true feelings after the "Georgian" pair, both born in Brazil, came back from a match point against to clinch victory two sets to one.

IT HAD to happen that Russia and Georgia would meet here in Beijing, on the Olympic sporting field. Yesterday, hours after the two countries had stopped fighting for real, their respective teams confronted each other before a baying, partisan crowd in a sporting arena – clad in bikinis. Surely no beach volleyball match in Olympic history has been so fraught with tension, so loaded with off-the-court significance, as this. Nor had an early-morning heat in women's preliminary pool C ever been so popular with the world's media, who, along with 12,200 spectators, squeezed into the compact Chaoyang Park beach volleyball ground.

The game itself started with a hug and ended in a tantrum. Along the way, there was drama, superb athleticism, a stirring fightback, sore losers and a plot twist that, once again, like the fake fireworks and the miming child singer of the opening ceremony, exposed these Olympic Games to the charge of duplicity.