No One Knows That Gevorg Gharibyan Fought with One Arm: The Boys Haven't Received Money for Months

No one knows that Gevorg Gharibyan fought with one arm during the European Championship. We couldn't get him to a condition where his injury was fully healed. We have done what we could with our personal resources. We come here and talk about medals, but we have numerous problems before that,” said Gevorg Aleksanyan, coach of the Armenian national Greco-Roman wrestling team, during a press conference today.

Armenia won 4 medals at the European Championship held in Budapest. Malxas Amoyan secured the title of European champion, while Rudik Mkrtchyan, Slavik Galstyan, and Gevorg Gharibyan became bronze medalists. Gharibyan participated in the European Championship with an injury. According to the 2020 European champion, these problems are not new, but each time they hoped that something would change.

The European champion stated that they are speaking up because they have been facing this issue for a long time: “There are boys on the team who haven't received even ten drams for several months. To put it a bit bluntly, a courier today earns more than the members of the national team. The sports governing bodies have done nothing. We are not asking for a lot or a little, but we are mature individuals, and there are boys on the team who support families, yet no one is receiving any money. I don’t want to complain too much, but it’s impossible to continue like this. I informed the federation and the ministry about my injury; it’s related to serious funds, I applied to them, and they said, ‘Go ahead, bring the checks, and we will give you.’ That is not an answer. We go to the European Championships without even having vitamins, we don’t even have sportswear; it’s a shame for us. We go in different clothes. We go as a group of ten, and none of us look alike, as if we are just a bunch of guys from the street. We didn’t even have a doctor before the match to check our injuries.”