Albert Azaryan, a Soviet gymnast famous for his rings routine, was the first gymnast to win Olympic gold on rings twice. His path in gymnastics was quite uncommon as he only started training at 17, after first being a blacksmith and a weightlifter. Now at 90, he is still managing the gymnastics school he opened many years ago and presiding over the Armenian Gymnastics Federation. He believes gymnastics is the sport that can open many doors:
“I will never get tired of repeating that gymnastics is the main sport. It is the start of the path to other sports.”
After Azaryan started competing for the Armenian republic, the invitation to join the national team originally came after what was considered a misconduct:
“This happened in Leningrad in 1953, at a competition that served as a trial for the World Championships team. When the turn of the rings came, my teammates from the Armeninan team, in judges’ opinion, couldn’t hold the cross for the required three seconds and got low scores. Very angry, I go out at the end of the rotation and do my routine in front of four judges – two in front of me and two behind. I get into the cross position and ask the judges in front: “Have I held it enough?” “Yes”, they say. “I’m turning to the other pair and ask them the same question. They also say it’s enough.”
After the competition, according to Azaryan, the head judge said that talking during the routine was a violation of conduct and he would not be allowed to compete on the national level anymore:
“Because when people do rings routines, they aren’t supposed to talk and I talked. But another judge noticed that I did a cross that had never been done before. And after that, I was invited to the USSR national team.”
The cross with a quarter turn was named after Albert Azaryan and became his signature element. However, his routine was packed with difficulty even without that element and he won his first World gold in 1954:
“The competition on the main national team was high but no one could do what I could do on rings. And for several years, I booked my place on the team, becoming and multiple World and Olympic champion.”
Azaryan retired from gymnastics shortly after the 1960 Olympics at 31 years old:
“Why did I retire? The reason was my age. My rings routine was full of difficult elements which were becoming harder and harder to do with age and the moment came when I had to retire. But, I want to note, I’m not leaving gymnastics. I’m still doing gymnastics for my health, I’m doing simple exercises every day for 1.5-2 hours.”
Azaryan’s son Eduard became a gymnast as well and was on the gold-winning team at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
