2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

[ara87]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

The Azeris will win a few more medals as they now have about half of their larger Olympic team comprising of foreign athletes competing in several more sports. They'll win a medal in Women's 48 KG Freestyle.

Well it depends on how you're viewing the ranks, if you go by total number of medals, then they will in all likely hood beat us. However if you're ranking by types of medals, even if they get another silver and two more bronze, a single gold medal outweighs all that. All Armenia has to do is get a gold, and Azerbaijan can have a few more bronzes

[Joseph]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

Well it depends on how you're viewing the ranks, if you go by total number of medals, then they will in all likely hood beat us. However if you're ranking by types of medals, even if they get another silver and two more bronze, a single gold medal outweighs all that. All Armenia has to do is get a gold, and Azerbaijan can have a few more bronzes

True. I also do not like comparing the number of medals, what should be compared is per capita medals, which in this case-based on population and number of competitors, Armenia would probably be in the top ten. I recall an article from 2008, when Armenia won 6 bronzes, that Armenia was the real winner of the Olympics based on the per capita criteria.

Nonetheless, they need to continue developing the training program- weightlifting was a disappointment this go round.

[Joseph]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2012/08/olympic-fix-the-case-of-the-azeri-boxer.html

Azeri fix

August 8, 2012
OLYMPIC BOXING: “THEY TAKE CARE OF THESE FIGHTERS FROM AZERBAIJAN”
Posted by Kelefa Sanneh


For an American boxing fan, the 2012 Olympics have been bittersweet. The women have won two medals: Marlen Esparza has a bronze, and Claressa Shields, the seventeen-year-old middleweight, fights for gold tomorrow. Meanwhile, the American men failed to win a medal for the first time in Olympic history (not counting the years when America didn’t send any boxers); boxing writers are busy trying to figure out how this once-dominant program has fallen so far.

Things must be bittersweet, too, for fans from Azerbaijan, whose boxing squad is the most talked-about team in this year’s Olympics—or would be, if more people cared about amateur boxing. Last Wednesday, Magomed Abdulhamidov, a bantamweight from Azerbaijan, won a comical decision in a fight during which neither the referee nor the judges seemed to take notice of the fact that he was repeatedly knocked to the canvas. After a formal protest, the sport’s governing body, AIBA, reversed the decision, and sent home the referee, Ishanguly Meretnyyazov; AIBA also expelled an Azerbaijani technical official, Aghajan Abiyev, explaining only that he was guilty of “a number of breaches of the AIBA code of conduct.” The role of Azerbaijan in these fiascos was striking in light of a BBC report from last year (available, in its entirety, here and here), which alleged that an AIBA-affiliated organization had accepted nine million dollars from an Azerbaijani investor, “in return for a guarantee that Azerbaijani fighters would win two boxing gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics.”



AIBA issued a firm denial of the charges, and many people assumed that, in light of the BBC investigation, the scheme—if there had been a scheme—was dead. It is difficult, no doubt, to rig the Olympics. But surely the task becomes impossible once the alleged plans are exposed, a year in advance, by one of the world’s most powerful news organizations.

After last week’s events, though, it was hard to be sure, especially since AIBA didn’t offer any additional explanations about what had gone wrong. If, amid allegations of Azerbaijani corruption, a referee turns in a pro-Azerbaijan performance so blatant that he has to be dismissed, perhaps a followup interview would be helpful. Surely boxing fans would be interested in hearing how a referee comes to make the same honest mistake nearly half a dozen times in a row.

Surely fans would be interested, too, in learning more about Abiyev, the “technical official,” whom one observer described as “an absolute giant” within AIBA. In the days before the Olympics began, Abiyev talked to the Azeri-Press Agency, and he offered an assessment that might have seemed, in other circumstances, like mere cheerleading. “I consider that it will not be a big problem for our famous boxers to win medal in the Olympics,” he said. “Surely, our boxers will gain medals in Olympic Games and we’ll see the type of medal in London.”

This past Sunday, Elena Vystropova, one of Azerbaijan’s three remaining fighters, was eliminated by Edith Ogoke from Nigeria. But Teymur Mammadov, an Azerbaijani heavyweight, had some trouble against Siarhei Karneyeu, from Belarus. Mammadov was awarded a very narrow victory, thanks to a third round during which he seemed to commit holding fouls without being heavily penalized for them.

When the result was announced, Teddy Atlas, calling the fight for NBC, was surprisingly subdued; perhaps outrage fatigue was setting in. “They really—they take care of these fighters from Azerbaijan, don’t they,” he said, sounding glum. But as the next fight began, he returned to his usual form, with an impassioned discussion of his own physio-emotional state:

You know, I’m going to start keeping a bucket here, near ringside, because I wanna throw up, and sooner or later, I think I’m gonna have trouble restraining the food in my body—in my stomach—from coming up, when I see some of these decisions that are destroying fighters—just destroying their hopes, their dreams, and all their work that they put in to get here!
On Monday, Azerbaijan’s other remaining fighter, a super heavyweight named Magomedrasul Medzhidov, fought hard against Magomed Omarov, a Russian. When it was over, Ryan Maquiñana, an NBC boxing producer, issued a prediction on Twitter:

Close fight, believe it or not. Thought either guy could’ve taken it. But knowing what we know, that means AZE by 7 lol #boxing#olympics
Then came the decision: Medzhidov, who had been trailing by a point, won the third round by four points, which means he did win, although not quite by seven. Tim Starks, a leading boxing blogger, and an unusually level-headed one, argued that the decision was fair. “Medzhidov legitimately had a big 3rd round to take it home,” he wrote. “As much as we’ve been dumping on Azerbaijan in some of these scoring/officiating scandals, it’s nice to see a fighter from that country truly earn a victory, because I’ve got nothing against Azerbaijan personally.”

Even boxing fans who lack Starks’s equanimity might now find themselves rooting for Azerbaijan, if only out of a desire to see a little country cause the biggest possible headache for the bureaucracies in charge. Mammadov and Medzhidov are both semifinalists, which means they’re both guaranteed spots on the medal podium—as Abiyev so presciently put it, we’ll soon “see the type of medal.” (In boxing, the losers of the semifinal matches both receive bronze medals.)

The most surreal part of this spectacle is how far removed it seems from the rest of the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee is a decentralized group, ceding control over different sports to various international federations, such as AIBA. Still, the I.O.C. takes a strong interest, for example, in athletes’ use of social media during the Games. But there’s no sign that the I.O.C. is similarly interested in the increasingly curious goings-on at the ExCel South Arena 2. Mammadov and Medzhidov fight again on Friday (not against each other); if they win, they will fight one last time, in the finals this weekend. And so it’s still possible—maybe even likely—that, nearly a year after the scandalous BBC report, the Azerbaijani squad will leave London with exactly what they allegedly wanted: two boxing gold medals.



Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz235NTS9CO

[ara87]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

True. I also do not like comparing the number of medals, what should be compared is per capita medals, which in this case-based on population and number of competitors, Armenia would probably be in the top ten. I recall an article from 2008, when Armenia won 6 bronzes, that Armenia was the real winner of the Olympics based on the per capita criteria.

Nonetheless, they need to continue developing the training program- weightlifting was a disappointment this go round.

Armenia needs to just send more athletes in the individual categories, because that's where it's easiest and cheapest to find talent.

Armenia also needs to branch out into other sports and not just focus on weightlifting and wrestling. Individual track, swimming, martial arts, cycling, shooting, archery, tennis, badminton, table tennis(!?!?!), martial arts, gymnastics. There are so many sports that Armenia is not competing in, or only sending one person in. If it's a matter of money, the Armenian Olympic committee should reach out to the diaspora. Then they also have to be smart about which categories they have their athletes compete in. For instance there were swimming events in which non of the American or other olympic swimming titans swam in, those could have possibly been easy medal in had we sent more than 2 swimmers.

Same with winter olympics. I'm sure yerevan has more than one ice rink where people of either gender could practice figure skating, whether solo or pairs. We have mountains with snow, how about some skiers? There are also ski resorts in Russia and Iran where they could train.

[Mher]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

abres Arman Yeremyan!! On to the the semifinals in 80 kg taekwondo, also number 1 seed Azeri knocked out in Quarterfinals
Semis at 8:15 pm Arm time, 9:15 am Pacific time

[Mher]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

Mihran Jaburyan loses in the Quarterfinals of 55 kg freestyle wrestling, loses opportunity for bronze as his opponent loses in the semis

[Mher]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

watch Arman live

http://www.usagoals.com/live/167083-olympic-taekwondo-67kg-women-80kg-men-repechages-finals/watch/stream/online/free/feed/p2p/en/vivo/tv/gratis/

[Federate]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

watch Arman live
http://www.usagoals.com/live/167083-...ivo/tv/gratis/

damn

[ara87]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

Don't forget to root for Devid Safaryan competing in the Men's 66kg Freestyle 1/8 finals tomorrow. He will be facing a challenger from Egypt.

You may also want root for Leonid Anatolievich Bazan of Bulgaria who will be going against Azerbaijan, and Sushil Kumar of India who will be challenging Turkey in the same event.

I think it'll start around 1:00 am eastern time on one of the NBC/MSNBC channels. You should also be able to stream it live here http://www.nbcolympics.com/online-li...-12/index.html

[ara87]

Re: 2012 London Olympics and the Armenian Olympics Team

Safaryan advances to the 1/4 finals and will face Kazakhstan. Sushil Kumar of India beat Turkey, sadly Azerbaijan will advance to the quarterfinals as they are currently beating Bulgaria. Also sad, the USA can not advance either as they lost out to Uzbekistan.

Safaryan's match should be at 9:33am London time, 4:33am Eastern US, and 3:33 central US