LONDON—Russian-Armenian boxer David Ayrapetyan won a bronze medal for Russia in the men’s Light Fly (49 kg.) boxing competition.
The 28-year-old Ayrapetyan already had an impressive record before arriving in London, having won gold at the 2006 European championships, silver at the 2009 World Amateur Boxing Championship held in Milan, and bronze at the same championship in 2011, held in Baku.
The 5’2″ (158 cm.) boxer, who was born in Baku in 1983, had lost in the first round in the 2008 Olympics.
On July 28, another Russian-Armenian, Arsen Galstyan, secured Russia’s first Olympic gold in the 60 kg. judo competition. It was also Russia’s first Olympic gold in judo since the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Galstyan was born on Feb. 19, 1989 in Armenia. The 5’7’’ (170 cm.) athlete is coached by Igor Romanov. He sometimes trains with his two brothers, Arman and Tigran.
What a pitiful display by Armenian athletes. Without taking away the accomplishment of the three athletes who won medals, the 25-strong Armenian olympic team proved very weak.
One cannot help but think that in a super-curropt reality of life in Armenia, an athlete is chosen by whom he/she knows rather than one’s athletic abilities.
These are just games, put in a greater scheme of things it does no harm. More disconcerting is teh country-wide corruption and the state of the military. What would happen if the army is put to the test in a real war, and behaves like the athletes in London, because of high level of corruption?
Corruption in athleticism hurts our pride. However, institutionalized corruption in Armenia hurts our national security. That is what we should be worried about.
You should watch some of the events before you speak on topics you know little about. In many instances our athletes were cheated out of victory by subjective scoring from the judges that left one wondering what the deal was. I have my suspicions on Azeri dirty oil money. They’ve already proven that they lack any sort of integrity with the whole boxing fiasco, and I wouldn’t put it past them. But I am not trying to find excuses. We must perform better.
Tsayt, I wanted to assure you, studies has shown that there is no correlation between winning medals in the olympics, and losing wars, on the contrary countries like Israel have not won any medals in the 2012 olympics, but through thier 65 year old history won every war. Hope this will help your pride and national concern.