Armenia (ARM)

Armenia’s first connection with the Modern Olympics can be traced to the 1912 Olympics when two Armenian track & field athletes represented Turkey. These two athletes, Mığır Mığıryan and Vahran Papazyan, comprised the entire Turkish team in 1912, but they had, in fact, been sent to Stockholm by the Armenian General Sports Union. (Papazyan had also competed at the 1906 Intercalated Olympics.) From 1918 Armenia enjoyed a brief period of independence and planned to take part in the 1920 Olympics but their hopes were thwarted when the country was occupied by Russian forces in 1920. For many years the Russian International Olympic Committee (IOC) Member, Prince Urosov, championed the cause of a group of émigrés known as the Young Armenian Emigrants Union, but he failed to gain Olympic recognition for them. In his Olympic Memoirs, Coubertin wrote, “Armenia existed only as a hope and a memory in the hearts of its loyal subjects.”

As part of the Soviet Union, Armenian athletes competed for the USSR Olympic team from 1952-1988 and in 1992 they formed part of the Unified Team. During this time the most successful Armenians have been the gymnasts Albert Azaryan (three gold and one silver in 1956 and 1960) and Hrant Shahinyan (two gold and two silver in 1952) as well as the modern pentathlete Igor Novikov, who won also two gold and two silver between 1956 and 1964.

Having eventually obtained independence, a National Olympic Committee (NOC) was established on 24 October 1990 and IOC recognition was sought the following year. This was provisionally granted in 1992 and full IOC recognition was given on 24 September 1993 at the IOC session in Monte Carlo, thereby enabling Armenia to compete as an independent nation at the Olympics. Armenia first competed at the Summer Olympics in 1996, and has since competed at all Olympic Games, winter and summer.

Through 2022, Armenia has won 18 Olympic medals, two gold, eight silver, and eight bronze. Both gold medals have been won by wrestlers: Armen Nazaryan who won the Greco-Roman flyweight class in 1996 (and later also medalled for Bulgaria) and Artur Aleksanyan who won the Greco-Roman heavyweight class in 2016. With his gold medal in 2016 Aleksanyan also became the first competitor for Armenia to win two medals as he had already won bronze in the Greco-Roman heavyweight class in 2012.

Armenia competed for the first time at the 1994 Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer. At the Lillehammer Opening Ceremony, the Armenians wore replicas of the uniform that they had hoped to wear at the 1920 Olympics. Armenia has competed in five disciplines at the Olympic Winter Games – Alpine skiing, bobsleigh, cross-country skiing, figure skating, and freestyle skiing – but has yet to win a medal at the Olympic Winter Games.