Yerevan, AUG 13: The Armenian National Olympic Committee has appealed the ruling by Olympics judges to award the silver medal to Armenian wrestling champion Artur Aleksanyan, who said last week that he was cheated out of the gold medal, citing a referee’s call on the mat.
Armenia’s official appeal was made Monday to the International Olympics Committee.
Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Sport Karen Giloyan told reporters that the United World Wrestling, in written answers, has claimed that the referees made the right decision.
“But we are 100 percent in the right, this is a fact,” Giloyan said, of the claims that judging and referees made an erroneous call.
“The National Olympic Committee of Armenia, attaching the complaint of the Armenian Wrestling Federation, and the answer of the United World Wrestling, has appealed to the appeals commission of the International Olympic Committee,” Giloyan announced.
“We had cases during the Olympic Games where similar episodes in other matches were treated very differently. We are more than convinced that Artur Aleksanyan wasn’t supposed to lose this match. Let the appeals commission decide. We are going to demand our gold medal until the end, until the very last authority, until Lausanne,” he said, referring to the seat of the Court of Arbitration for Athletics.
Last week, Aleksanyan received the silver medal in the 97kg Men’s Greco-Roman Wrestling final match, over Iran’s Mohammadhadi Saravi, who was awarded the gold medal. Aleksanyan removed the silver medal during the ceremony in protest of the decision.
A day later, Aleksanyan said he was robbed of the gold medal and saying there were unjust calls from the referees. errors made by the referees and accused the judging panel of biased.
The judge scored
“Everyone is asking why I removed the medal from my chest. It’s because that medal does not belong to me. The silver medal from the Paris Olympic Games does not belong to me. That is the reason,” Aleksanyan said in an interview with News.am in Paros.
Armenia’s Greco-Roman wrestling head coach Armen Babalyan mentioned that an appeal process has been initiated regarding the refereeing in the final match involving Aleksanyan.
According to the coach, in the second period, Saravi stepped off the mat with both feet while attempting a move, in which case the point should have been awarded to Aleksanyan. However, after the match, the chief referee did not register the out-of-bounds incident.
