Armenian Athletes Excelling on the Sports Scene

Lara Kuyumjian
Lara88.Bruin@ucla.edu

Armenians have excelled in many areas of sports:

Weightlifting
Team Armenia was welcomed home after dauntless feats in Italy, earning first place among the 51 nations competing in the European championships on April 22, 2008.
Even without the esteemed Gevorg Davtyan, who was dubbed Armenia’s Sportsman of the Year, Team Armenia was able to seize many medals in Lignano, Italy, totaling 17! The 17 medals included 13 gold, 3 silver, and 1 bronze.

Tigran Gevorg Martirosyan and Tigran Vardan Martirosyan both gained the title of champions of Europe amongst their fellow male weightlifters.
But finishing in first place wasn’t enough for Tigran Gevorg Martirosyan. To top it off, he set a new world record in the 69-kilogram subdivision of his age group.
Meline Daluzyan and Nazik Avdalyan won titles among the women competing in the European championships.

Team Armenia was congratulated and welcomed by Armenia’s sport officials in Yerevan, including Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Armen Grigoryan and President of the National Olympic Committee of Armenia, Gagik Tsarukyan.

Gagik Tsarukyan said the team of weightlifters from Armenia had exceeded his expectations and thanked all the team members and their families for "giving to our country children who have managed to uphold he honor of the Armenian nation."

The weightlifters of Team Armenia have secured six slots in the Olympics in Beijing that will take place in August, which is a considerable portion of Armenia’s 16 total qualifications thus far. Samvel Khachatryan, president of the Weightlifting Federation, wishes that more weightlifters that represent Armenia will earn a slot in the Olympics next month. He also expects the weightlifters of Team Armenia to win medals in honor of Armenia at the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.

Basketball
Martun Cholakhyan, born in 1937, is Armenia’s basketball coach who had guided and coached women athletes in the USSR. He was an Olympic champion himself and died at the age of 71 on Monday, April 21, 2008 due to illness.

Cholakhyan had endorsed and encouraged the basketball in Soviet Armenia and has strongly supported Hatis, the women’s team in the municipality of Abovyan. With Martun Cholakhyan as their coach, Hatis attained the USSR Cup twice, once in 1973 and again in 1975.
Furthermore, Cholakhyan guided a junior USSR team to the European
Championships, winning the title of champions.

Chess
Sergey Movsisian, who performs under Slovakia’s flag, was short a mere half a point in sharing the title of champion with the victor of the European individual chess championships in Bulgaria.
Earning a total of eight points throughout eleven rounds, the Armenian Grandmaster trotted right after the champion Sergey Tivyakov, a representative of the Netherlands, and shared ranks 2-10 with his fellow chess-playerers.

Armenian Grandmaster Vladimir Hakobyan ranked 19 with 7.5 points.
Out of a total of 357 participants, various championship outcomes of other Armenians in the men’s division included: Gabriel Sargsyan finishing in 28th, Samvel Ter-Sahakyan finishing in 42nd, Karen Asryan finishing in 67th, Tigran Kotanjyan finishing in 95th, Ashot Anastasyan finishing in 124th, Tigran Petrosyan finishing in 127th, Artashes Minasyan finishing in 142nd, and Dmitri Harutyunyan finishing in 316th place.

Among Armenians in the women’s chess championships, Lilit Mkrtchyan merited the best outcome, finishing fifth out of 159 chess-players with a score of eight points. Gamemaster Kateryna Lahno of Ukraine, won the championships with a total of 8.5 points over eleven games.
Numerous Armenian women competed, and the participants who earned a rank were as follows: Elina Danielyan finishing in 13th, Nelly Aghinyan in 62nd, Lilit Galoyan in 63rd, Siranush Andreasyan in 96th, and Anna Hayrapetyan in 135th place.

Tae Kwan Do
For the first time ever, an Armenian participant earned a title in the European Tae Kwan Do championships in Rome, Italy. Arman Yeremyan won the gold medal in the 78-kilogram subdivision. While competing in this competition, Yeremyan defeated participants from various countries such as Norway, Ireland, Moldova, Spain, and Belarus.

Boxing
German newspaper The Bild, distributed information asserting that boxing champ Arthur Abraham had been charged with rape.
The 28-year-old middleweight champion from Germany continuously denies these allegations, declaring that these claims are a contrived plot made by his rivals. Abraham is seeking action against Universum Club, indicting them of premeditated schemes to injure his reputation as a respectable boxer.

"I am deeply surprised at the news. No such thing has ever happened and no
action has been taken against me," Abraham said to the Armenian news website A1 Plus.
At present, Abraham is training in Switzerland for an upcoming match against Edison Miranda, a representative of Columbia. If Abraham is triumphant in his goal of maintaining his world title for the eighth consecutive time, then he will be qualified to face Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik, who is the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization unified middleweight champion, in a belt unification fight.

Soccer
Armenia’s U-19 national team led by Coach Armen Gyulbudaghyants began with a friendly match in Italy.

In the opening bout over last weekend, Armenia beat Italy’s football club, Monza, 4-1. In the following match, Armenia’s team defeated their opponents, Vicenza, 4-1. Armenia’s third game is against the U-19 team of FC Juventus.

In the meantime, Edgar Manucharyan, the 21-year-old striker of Armenia and FC Ajax Amsterdam, is reportedly in search of a different football club to join.

"Despite the fact that I am in a good form, Ajax head coach Adrie Koster does not give me the chance to show myself. Under the circumstances, I see no possibility for progress;" Regnum.ru news agency quotes Manucharyan, who had no field time for Ajax’s main team this term.

I’m not happy with my current situation, but I hope that the situation will change in summer."
But that’s not the only alteration that is going to soon take place regarding FC Ajax. FC Ajax is looking forward to a new coach this summer. One likely candidate is the present coach of the Dutch national team Marco van Basten.

Wrestling
Suren Markosyan and Harutyun Yenokyan received Olympic permits to partake in this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing after a recent Olympic qualifying tournament in Switzerland.

However, there are still five more Armenian wrestlers, managed by Coach Hrant Yenokyan, that have yet to compete at the last Olympic ranking tournament in Poland.