Four Silver and Bronze Medals for Team Armenia in Paris

The Armenian National Olympic Committee has appealed the Aleksanyan-Saravi wrestling match ruling to the International Olympic Committee.

On August 9 Aleksanyan spoke out after his controversial final match. Visibly upset, at the medaling ceremony, he took off the silver medal as a sign of protest.

“I came here for gold,” Aleksanyan told reporters. “But during the match you all saw what happened. At one point the Iranian wrestler was outside the mat with both legs. I saw that moment and I myself told the coaches to object. If you go out with both legs, I should have been rewarded one point. But instead, they gave two points to the Iranian athlete, and added one more for the objection. Everyone is asking me why I took off the medal, this is why! That one point was supposed to be mine and the final score was supposed to be 2:1 in my favor,” Aleksanyan said, adding that he is disappointed by “refereeing injustice.”

He said he’s undecided about his future, but added “I am very disappointed by these injustices. I will remain in wrestling. I hope justice will be restored.”

He added he noticed similar injustice against fellow Armenian wrestler Slavik Galstyan, which makes him believe that there were some “tensions” against the Armenian team.

Aleksanyan also thanked the Armenian fans who were present in the arena.

The Aleksanyan-Saravi match was referred by Ferenc Gyarmati (Romania). The judge was Nedyalko Kirov Kireziev of Bulgaria, and the Mat Chairman was Stanislav Sernek of Slovenia.

Deputy Minister of Sport of Armenia Karen Giloyan told reporters that the United World Wrestling, in written answers, has claimed that the referees made the right decision. “But we are 100 percent right, this is a fact,” Giloyan said. “The National Olympic Committee of Armenia, attaching the complaint of the Armenian Wrestling Federation, and the answer of the United World Wrestling, has appealed to the appeals commission of the International Olympic Committee.”

“We had cases during the Olympic Games where similar episodes in other matches were treated very differently. We are more than convinced that Artur Aleksanyan wasn’t supposed to lose this match. Let the appeals commission decide. We are going to demand our gold medal until the end, until the very last authority, until Lausanne,” he said, referring to the seat of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

(Stories from Armenpress and News.am were used to compile this report.)