Wrestler Arthur Aleksanyan and weightlifter Simon Martirosyan won silver medals at the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday, bringing home the two more medals for Team Armenia, after gymnast Arthur Gevorkyan won a bronze medal on Monday.
Martirosyan (109kg) won his silver lifting 190kg, then 195kg, but failed to snatch 198kg. The 195kg snatch is an Olympic record.
In the clean and jerk round, Martirosyan was not able to lift 228kg and then 238kg. With a mark of 435 Martirosyan finished second.
Aleksyan, the Greco-Roman wrestler who won a gold medal in the 2016 Rio Games, competed in the match despite having been injured during a previous competition. He won the silver but lost 5:1 to Russian Olympic Committee’s Musa Evloev in the 97kg division.
Armenian Greco-Roman wrestling team Gevorg Aleksanyan expressed his dissatisfaction at the referees judging the Armenian wrestlers at the Olympic Games, reported Armenpress.
“Three members of the Greco-Roman wrestling team were deprived of their medals or the colors were changed as a result of partial judgment of the referees. They demolished our team, but I will speak about that later. I am very upset,” Gevorg Aleksanyan told reporters.
Arthur Aleksanyan did not hang the Olympic medal around his neck during the award ceremony. According to some Russian media reports, Arthur Aleksyan told reporters that “you have to be Russian to win.”
In other Tokyo Olympics news, Armenian boxer Hovhannes Bachkov, who made it to the quarter-finals after defeating Azerbaijan’s Javid Chalabiyev, advanced to the semi-finals by beating Uzbekistan’s Elnur Abduraimov 5:0 on Tuesday. He will compete face off against Keyshawn Davis of the United States on August 6.
Congratulations to all three men, in tremendously difficult sports.
ROC should not even have been allowed to compete.