The 25 Armenian athletes departing for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, China, will face the 639-strong Chinese, 596-strong US and 470-strong Russian teams. Given the sheer size of the competing teams and the fact, that our national team brought zero gold medals from the past Olympics in Athens, it’s really hard to believe in the success of our tiny Armenian team.
The Olympic torch will be lit in Beijing on 8th month of year 2008, at 8 seconds, 8 minutes past 8 o’clock of local time – as the figure 8 is considered lucky in China. The motto of the Olympics is – “One world, one dream” and that dream will cost China 44 billion dollars – a record amount to be spent on organization of Olympic games.
The history of independent Armenia has only seen one Olympic champion so far – wrestler Armen Nazaryan won Olympic gold in Atlanta, 1996. Overall Armenia has had 13 Olympic champions and we’ve been the best in wrestling, weightlifting, athletics. Clearly the team sports are not one of our strengths.
The Armenian team this year has 6 weightlifters (Hripsime Khurshudyan, Tigran g. Martirosyan, Gevorg Davtyan, Ara Khachatryan, Tigran V. Martirosyan, Edgar Gevorgyan), 4 boxers (Hovhannes Danielyan, Hrachik Javakhyan, Eduard Hambardzumyan, Andranik Hakobyan), 3 free wrestlers (Martin Berberyan, Suren Markosyan, Harutyun Yenokyan), 6 Greco/Roman wrestlers (Roman Amoyan, Karen Mnatsakanyan, Arman Adikyan, Arsen Julfalakyan, Denis Forov, Yuri Patrikeyev), 2 judoists (Hovhannes Davtyan, Armen Nazaryan), 2 track-and-field athletes (Melik Janyan, Ani Khachikyan), 1 swimmer (Mikayel Koloyan) and 1 shooter (Norayr Bakhtamyan).
On my flight to Moscow on July 31st, I was lucky to be on the same plane with our judo team – the guys were wearing the proud uniform of Armenian Olympics team and were sure of their success. Their coaches, however, were more cautious – the Chineeze team is especially strong they said and they have the mental ability of concentrating for the hour of the match in such a manner, that the results resemble that of using doping means. At any rate, the Armenian team has the high sponsorship of Armenian oligarch, head of Armenian Olympic Committee Gagik Tsarukyan, who has promised money, gifts and honor to Armenian gold winners – along with grave threats to make sure they bring home the Olympic gold. Will this kind of ‘stick and carrot’ policy force the tiny Armenian team bring medals home? We will see soon – shooter Norayr Bakhtamyan, judoist Hovhannes Davtyan (60 kilos) and boxer Andranik Hakobyan (75 kilos) will be first to compete in Beijing on August 9. All we can do now is prey for them and watch the splendid opening ceremony which is due to start soon and will be broadcast on Armenian Public TV. Go Armenians – Stronger, Faster, Higher!!!
Artur Papyan
Journalist, blogger, digital security and media consultant
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[…] The 25 Armenian athletes departing for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, China, will face the 639-s…. Given the sheer size of the competing teams and the fact, that our national team brought zero gold medals from the past Olympics in Athens, it’s really hard to believe in the success of our tiny Armenian team. […]
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[…] Armenian Observer reports on the 25 Armenian athletes who are taking part in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Posted by Onnik Krikorian […]
We will OVERCOME….We always have and will continue to! Support our Armenian athletes.
We are few but we are strong. Continue to believe and continue to fight.
turks (it is in lower case for a reason) are afraid to realize that we are smarter and stronger. They feel threatened by our intelligence, our power, and our ability to put ourselves above anything they have ever done or will ever do. It is not our fault they feel less of a people because we do everything that they do 10 times more superior. If turks had real men among their population they would step up and admit to what has occurred. Unfortunately they are afraid of the consequences and use the wimpy American base in turkey as leverage. None of them deserve to live!
enough said…Right?
None of them deserve to live!
Oh, that’s nice. Way to really move relations further. It is always a good idea to stereotype and threaten an entire group.
I’m sure that your deep knowledge how how turks are comes from many years of interacting with them. Thanks for sharing your expertise with the world.
To all brainwashed racists above – your comments are off topic and unwelcome. Further comments of similar nature will be deleted.
Wow, grave threats if they don’t get a medal? Now that is a motivator!
[…] Armenian team at the Olympics 2008 in Beijing The 25 Armenian athletes departing for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, China, will face the 639-strong Chinese, […] […]
Good Luck to the Armenians… http://www.enewsreference.com/newspaper/armenia_news.htm
http://realarmenia.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/first-medal-of-armenian-team-in-olympic-games/
For a long time(from the year 2000 Arsen Melikyan’s bronze medal) we had no medal. Now,thanks to Roman Amoyan we have at least one.Bronze.
Congratulations to all armenians!
Greco/Roman wrestling-55 kg category
Roman Amoyan- 3-rd place!!!
1/8 Amoyan-Imanbaev (Kazakhstan) 7:2
1/4 Amoyan-Gogitadze (Georgia) 7:3
1/2 Amoyan-Bayramov (Azerbaijan) 3:11
for 3-rd place Amoyan-Hernandez (Cuba) 8:0
So far,we are waiting for silver and gold ones!!!
Armenia’s Martirosyan Tigran (Gevorg) won the Bronze medal in Wightlifting, men’s 69kg category.
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/WL/C92A/WLM069000.shtml#WLM069A01
Armenia thus has won 2 bronze medals so far (no gold unfortunately yet). The full picture of medal standings can be found here: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/GL/95A/GL0000000.shtml
Congrats!!! A great achievement indeed. Congrats to the athletes, coaches, and all those who worked hard to give Armenia these excellent results.
Dear Athletes and Coaches,
We are very, very proud of you! Thank you for wonderfully representing all Armenians across the world. Our hearts are together.
I think its perfect. But my opinion is still you need to think on your comment.
Weightlifter Gevorg Davtyan (77kg) brought Armenia the 3rd bronze medal in this Olympics.
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/BIO/Athlete/0/234540.shtml
Not bad, but I’m still waiting for the GOLD, and it’s not coming 🙁
What would be nice is lots of gold medals for Armenia, and then all the gold medalists would donate Dodi’s money to help the citizens of Armenia. Anyway, the athletes are trying as hard as they can, and would have done so without money on the table.
The Armenian team is leading the world in medals in proportion to total population. Three medals and a population of under three million.
http://diluvianam.blogspot.com/2008/08/armenia-leads-olympic-medal-count.html
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I think there won’t be gold. Our last strong weightlifter won Bronze today (that is 5 now) and the female weightlifter who I thought would get a medal didn’t do well at all. This is probably it for us unless one of the boxers wins something (very little hope there).
The sad thing is that there are many good Armenian athletes who represent other countries. Like for instance ironically our wrestler, who has Russian name, Denis Forov lost to Sweden’s Ara Abrahamyan who is originally from Gyumri. Typical Armenian reality.
Anyway, there seem to be more than 25 athletes from Armenia according to http://www.nbcolympics.com/athletes/index.html . Do you know what happened with those 12 athletes not included in your post?
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