By Paul Vartan Sookiasian
Gymnast Artur Davtyan won a silver medal on the vault Sunday at this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris, Armenia’s first medal win of the games.
Davtyan, whose bronze medal at the previous Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 was Armenia’s first gymnastics medal in its modern history, had barely qualified for the vault finals, coming seventh of eight finalists from a field of 18 competitors.
“I jumped both [qualifying vaults] badly. There was a question whether I would make it to the finals or not. But everything turned out fine, I made it to the finals, and I’m coming back [to Armenia] with a medal,” Davtyan told the outlet news.am after his win.
One of Davtyan’s competitors, Carlos Yulo of the Philippines, vaulted into the lead early, just a day after winning gold in the floor routine. The pressure was on as Davtyan, the last to vault, was clearly underestimated by the British television commentators, who seemed to discount him before he even started, appearing to anticipate the medals would go to Yulo and the athletes then in second and third place, both British.
Davtyan’s first of two vaults received a score of 14.966, while third place stood at 14.933. After his second vault Sunday, commentators still appeared to write off any chance of him placing, and so there was shock all around when judges gave Davtyan an identical second score, launching him into second place overall. Placement in the vault is determined by averaging the scores of two attempts, based on difficulty and execution.
Davtyan’s silver was hard won, with his final score of 14.966 well beyond the gold medal score at the previous Olympics of 14.783 in which he earned bronze. It’s made all the more impressive by the fact he’s one of the oldest gymnasts in the competition: He will turn 32 on Thursday, while gold and bronze both went to athletes in their early 20s. What’s more, unlike the state-of-the-art facilities afforded to many elite athletes in the West, reports from Davtyan’s Yerevan gym after his 2021 medal showed the conditions to be inadequate, despite having produced a world champion.
Ever the competitor, Davtyan appeared to have mixed feelings about his silver medal win.
“I’m a little sad that I’m not coming back with a gold medal. We’ve [i.e. Armenia] gone one step forward,” Davtyan told news.am. “I will train, I will prepare for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, definitely. The important thing is not to get an injury.”
Though he holds Armenia’s only two gymnastics medals, Davtyan follows in the footsteps of Armenian greats of the Soviet era, including Hrant Shahinyan, father-and-son Albert and Eduard Azaryan, and Edvard Mikaelian, who all won silvers and golds between 1952 and 1980.
Davtyan’s bronze gives new momentum to Armenian gymnastics, inspiring new students and a new school that is now under construction in Yerevan. To that point, Armenia will host the 2027 European Gymnastics Championship, the first time the country will host such a major European sports championship. For Armenia’s gymnasts, this is just the beginning.
