Olympic Committee: Armenia will travel to Baku with 25 athletes

Yerevan / News.am – Armenia will participate with 25 athletes to the First European Games, which will be held from June 12 to 28 in the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku.

Secretary General of the National Olympic Committee of Armenia

(ARMNOC), Hrachya Rostomyan, informed about the aforementioned at a press

conference on Tuesday.

“All security and organizational issues have been resolved. The first group of

our delegation will depart on June 10. I am the head of the delegation of Armenia,

and I will leave [for Baku] first.

“All the financial costs were provided by the ARMNOC President [Gagik Tsarukyan]. We refused Baku’s funding for understandable reasons.

“We have received all prerequisites and security guarantees from the three sides: Azerbaijan, IOC [i.e. the International Olympic Committee], and EOC [i.e. the European Olympic Committee]. ARMNOC would not have taken a decision [to go to Baku], we would not have left for Baku without having these prerequisites.

“We decided that we need to participate [in the Baku games], but at the wishes of the athletes. Our task is that all athletes shall compete with honour.

“The ARMNOC decision is purely sportive. (…) We have European Games, which don’t belong to Azerbaijan, but rather it’s the EOC’s. ARMNOC decided not to be isolated from this most important sporting event.

“We are going [to Baku] to participate with success. Each medal [won there] will be a great triumph for us.

Each [Armenian] athlete is already a hero for wanting to go to Baku.

“Armenia will [also] participate in the opening ceremony [of the 2015 European Games in Baku], and I will be our standard-bearer,” Rostomyan specifically stated.

LOUSSAPATZ-1082-2015-05-30