Weightlifter Aghasi Aghasyan held the 190kg barbell up in his hands and taking off his shoes left the stage, at the final round of the Armenian weightlifting tournament.
During the men weightlifting tournament of Armenia on Saturday, February 4, the silver medal winner of the 95kg category Aghasi Aghasyan, in his last attempt held the barbell in his hands longer than usual, took off his shoes and left the stage as a protest sign against the Weightlifting Federation of Armenia(WFA). Later on, the weightlifter posted on his Facebook page that he wants to end his professional career and what he did was against the WFA. The latter had made a decision to send Araqel Mirzoyan(the son of a famous weightlifter Oksen Mirzoyan) to the Summer Olympic Games in Rio instead of Aghasyan, whereas Aghasyan had always shown much better results in the 85kg category than him. In the interview with the ‘Hetq.am’ reporter Gagik Aghbalyan, the weightlifter mentioned that he is disappointed with the general coach of the national weightlifting team and declared himself to be the best in the 85kg category.
It is important to also mention that the gold medal winner weighed 10 kilograms more than Aghasyan, yet the latter was 400 grams far from competing in the 85kg category.
Reference: http://hetq.am/arm/news/69999/axasi-axasyan-araqeln-indz-zijum-er-bayc-rio-gnac-hor-shnorhiv.html
Author: Artyom Matevosyan
thecriticalspace 