For Artur Davtyan, winning pommel horse gold at the European Championships was especially meaningful because the Armenian anthem played in the arena on the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. For the medal ceremony, Davtyan pinned the remembrance symbol – a forget-me-not flower – onto his uniform.
The symbol was designed in 2015, hundred years after the genocide, and became widely used by Armenians around the world.
Davtyan and other Armenian gymnasts were unable to compete at the European Championships last year and not because of the pandemic. The competition was originally scheduled to take place in Baku and Armenian athletes boycott any Azerbaijanian competitions due to the ongoing armed conflict between the two countries. Last year, the conflict grew into an all-out war that laster several months and in which Azerbaijan was backed by Turkey. According to Akop Serobyan, the head coach of the Armenian MAG team, several gymnasts were active soldiers in the war, including Vigen Khachatryan and Zhora Smbatyan. Armenia ended up boycotting the competition in Turkey as well.
In the past, Davtyan and Serobyan have been vocal about holding competitions in Azerbaijan which effectively means that Armenian athletes cannot attend them because missing competitions means losing funding opportunities for the gymnasts.
Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
