Wushu and Armenian-Turkish Relations

Armenia faced artificial obstacles in Turkey during the Wushu Championship, said President of the Traditional Wushu Federation of Armenia Tigran Chobanyan today, summing up the results of the Armenian Wushu team in the European Wushu Championship that took place in Antalya from March 7–13. Wushu, by the way, is a full-contact sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts.

“We did not have any problems with the population in Turkey. In that sense, we were given a good welcome, while what concerns the competition, we came to realize that Armenia was a serious target, and that everything was being done so that the Armenian flag would not be raised in the training grounds. Despite that, we succeeded in winning two gold medals,” said Chobanyan.

He also mentioned that the referees were supporting the Turkish athletes as a result of which Armenia missed a few more gold medals.

“On the first day, Davit Grigoryan defeated the Turkish athlete in the adult’s contest. On that very day, six Turkish representatives were defeated. It seemed to us that everything was OK, but the next day the referee staff made a U-turn in its approach and began to allow serious mistakes,” explained Chobanyan.

Armenia appealed to the European Wushu Federation in relation to one of the matches. The Federation has acknowledged that the referees committed serious errors and that, in fact, it was the Armenian athlete who won (in that particular match). The Appellate Commission had already arrived at the same conclusion; however, the Federation’s Executive Committee decided by vote to leave result of that match unchanged.

Chobanyan explains this contradiction by saying, “The Turks either pressured the international Federation or gave them large sums of money.”

“What happened in Turkey must be spoken about [and condemned] through international mass media so that no such cases ever repeat themselves,” he said.

The Wushu World Championship is to be held in 2010 in the Turkish city of Izmir.