By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Winter Olympics
Thousands of TV viewers in Armenia watching Olympic competitions live from Turin felt betrayed on Tuesday as two Armenian skiers participating in the cross-country men’s team sprint semifinal (6×1.3 km) failed even to reach the finish line.
Armenia’s ice dancing pair compete tonight
According to Armenian TV journalists following the competition in Turin, Hovhannes Sargsyan (age 18, Gyumri) and Edmond Khachatryan (age 22, Gyumri) looked noticeably weaker and more tired than their competitors (22 athletes from 11 countries) from the outset and were 30.8 seconds behind the last man in the group (a hard-working Korean) after the first round, and, further, trailing more than 64.6 seconds behind after the second round.
Seeing that the leading group of skiers would catch up with them from behind (having done a lap more), in which case according to the regulations the athletes would have been automatically withdrawn from further competition, the Armenian skiers decided to withdraw from the race themselves, with one round yet to go, Armenian Sport Committee spokesman Yuri Alexanyan told Armenian Public TV H1 from Turin.
The time showed by Team Armenia in the cross-country skiing event was 13:31.6 after two rounds, compared to 12:27.0 showed at that point by the 11th pair from Croatia that the Armenian skiers were trailing. Had they finished, their result would have been in a range exceeding 21 minutes – the worst result for both semifinals. In contrast, Turkey, finishing last in semifinal 1, showed the result of 19:46.5 (for full results and standings in men’s team sprint semifinal 2 visit http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/IDF/CC/C73F_CCM461902.html).
In the 15-kilometer classical race on today (February 17), from among 99 athletes Edmond Khachatryan (47:37.8) finished 83rd and Hovhannes Sargsyan finished 89th (50:45.7).
The race was won by Estonia’s Andrus Veerpalu (38:01.3) For full results and standings see http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/IDF/CC/C73A_CCM015101.html
Now the Armenian skiers are bracing themselves for individual sprint (qualifications) on February 22, with no much expectation from them either of Armenian Federation officials or fans.
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Azroyan will have performances on February 17 (late evening), February 19 and 20, and alpine skier Abraham Sarkakhyan will be the last of Armenians to perform in Turin in slalom and giant slalom on February 25.
Meanwhile, Tsaghkadzor where the Armenian skiers had their training for the Olympic events proved lucky for the Russian skiers also trained at the modernized Armenian winter resort.
Yevgeni Dementiev won the gold medal in men’s 30 kilometer pursuit and the pair Vassili Rotchev and Ivan Alypov finished third in the cross country team competition (where the Armenians failed).
A1 Plus reports that Russian sport bosses met with Armenian Skiing Federation President Armen Yeritsyan and National Olympic Committee Secretary General Armen Grigoryan on the sidelines of the competitions in Turin to discuss cooperation between the two countries’ federations in the future.
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