This article is about ethnic Armenian Olympic medalists. For athletes who competed for the modern Republic of Armenia (since 1996), see Armenia at the Olympics § List of medalists.
Soviet gymnast Albert Azaryan(pictured on a 2009 postage stamp) is the most decorated Armenian Olympian of all time with three gold and one silver medal.A poster at an Armenian public school depicting ancient and modern Armenian Olympic gold medalists
Historically, only a portion of ethnic Armenian athletes and athletes of Armenian descent have competed for Armenia in the Olympic Games. Classical Armenian historians attest that Armenian kingsTiridates III and Varazdat were recorded as champions in the Ancient Olympic Games. The first Armenians to participate in modern Olympics were athletes Mkrtich Mkryan and Vahram Papazyan, who represented the Ottoman Empire in the 1912.[1] The first Armenian to win a medal was Hal Haig Prieste, a son of Armenian immigrants, who won a bronze medal in diving in the 1920 for the United States.[2] Soviet Armenian gymnast Hrant Shahinyan became the first Armenian gold medalist of the modern Olympics in 1952.
Later king Varazdat (Varazdates), also from the Arsacid dynasty, who reigned between 374 and 378,[10] has been widely cited as the last Olympic victor known by name, with a victory in fisticuffs (boxing)[a][12] in 385 AD.[23][24] It is supported by a memorial plate at the museum in Olympia, Greece.[25] Other authors have placed the event in 369,[26][27][28][29] 365,[30] or 393.[31] According to Movses Khorenatsi, while a prince living at the court of Roman Emperor Valens in Constantinople, he won the "pugilistic contest" by killing lions.[32] According to Remijsen, Varazdates is the highest up the social ladder of all late-antique athletes.[33] His victory, however, has been questioned in recent decades. Young noted that his "supposed victory is attested only in a murky Armenian source" (Movses Khorenatsi).[34] While Nina Garsoïan considered the purported victories of Tiridates and Varazdates "improbable" and "unlikely."[35][36]
^According to Faustus of Byzantium; see Hacikyan, Agop Jack; Basmajian, Gabriel; Franchuk, Edward S.; Ouzounian, Nourhan (2000). The Heritage of Armenian Literature: From the Oral Tradition to the Golden Age. Vol. 1. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 184. ISBN9780814328156.
^Fraser, A. D.; Gardiner, E. Norman (1927). "Olympia: Its History and Remains". The Classical Weekly. 20 (11): 88. doi:10.2307/4388895. JSTOR4388895. ...the year 385 A. D., with which is to be associated the name of the last recorded Olympic victor, a boxer, Varasted or Varazdates by name, a Persian Arsacid, from Armenia.
^Gardiner, E. Norman (2002) [1930]. Athletics in the Ancient World. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. p. 52. ISBN9780486147451. The last Olympic victor whose name we know is the Armenian Prince Varazdates, who won the boxing in the 291st Olympiad (A. D. 385).
^Trypanis, Constantine Athanasius (1964). Grooves in the Wind. Chilmark Press. p. 7. Varazdates – By a strange irony of fate the last recorded victor of the national (Olympic) games was Varazdates, a Persian Ascarid from Armenia, who won the boxing in A.D. 385
^Parandowski, Jan (1964). The Olympic Discus: A Story of Ancient Greece. Ungar. p. 299. It was Varazdates, an Armenian prince, a descendant of the Arsacids, who in the year 385 received the wreath for boxing.
^Schöbel, Heinz[in German] (1966). The Ancient Olympic Games. Van Nostrand. p. 127. 385: Varazdates, last named crowned victor in the ancient Olympic Games
^Mandell, Richard D. (1987). The Nazi Olympics. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. p. 6. ISBN9780252013256. Under the tolerant, assimilating Romans, the Olympics became polyglot and the last Olympic victor of whom we have record was an Armenian prince, Varaztad, who won a boxing match in A.D. 385.
^Baker, William Joseph (1988). Sports in the Western world (Rev. ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 40. ISBN9780252060427. Fittingly, the last champion for whom there is evidence was not a Greek, but an Armenian boxer named Varaztad.
^Lambros, Sp. P.; Polites, N. G. (1896). The Olympic Games, B.C.776-A.D.1896: Part First. New York: American Olympic Committee. p. 8. This explains how in the two hundred and ninety first Olympiad (385 B.C.) the victory was carried off by the Armenian pugilist, Varasdates, a descendant of the royal family of Arsacides, who became later the king of Armenia. This Varasdates was the last conqueror in the Olympic Games known to us.
^Golden, Mark (2004). Sport in the Ancient World from A to Z. Routledge. p. 172. ISBN9781134535965. Varazdat, son of Anop, king of Armenia (374-378 CE) and boxer, fourth century CE. Varazdat, a boxer, is one of the latest Olympic victors we can identify by name. [Moses Chorenaçi 3.40.]
^Ispirian 2000, pp. 193–194: "Հարցի ճշգրտման վրա լույս է սփռում Հունաստանի Օլիմպիա ավանի օլիմպիական թանգարանում ցուցադրվող դարերի խոքից մեզ հասած հուշագիրը, ուր աղյուսաձև վերից վար նշված են օլիմպիական խաղերի թվերը, դրանց անցկացման տարեթվերը, օլիմպիական խաղերի չեմպիոնների անունները և նրանց երկրների անվանումները: Այդ հուշագիրը տեղեկացնում է որ հին հունական օլիմպիոնոկոսի կոչումը նվաճել է հայաստանցի Վարազդատը:"
^Scanlon, Thomas F. (2002). Eros and Greek Athletics. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 357. ISBN9780195348767. Varazdates, a Arsacid from Armenia who won in boxing in A.D. 369.
^Guttmann, Allen (2004). Sports: The First Five Millennia. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. p. 22. ISBN9781558496101. The date of the last Olympic is as uncertain as the date of the first. Until quite recently, the last known victor was the Armenian prince Varazdat, who won the boxing competition in 369 A.D., but an inscription discovered at Olympia in 1994 gives the names of several athletes whose victories came as late as 385 A.D. If Theodosius I decreed an end to the Olympics in 394, as some scholars believe, then the last games took place in 393. (The evidence for this belief comes from an eleventh-century manuscript by Georgios Kedrenos.)
^Wenn, Stephen R.; Schaus, Gerald P., eds. (2007). Onward to the Olympics : historical perspectives on the Olympic Games. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 5. ISBN978-0-88920-505-5. Not only does the honour of being the last known Olympian no longer belong to Varazdat(es) of Armenia in AD 369, but it is significant for our understanding of the "end" of the Games that these latest Olympians came from Athens, not from distant parts if the ancient world.
^Littlewood, A.R. (2010). "Olympia". In Wilson, Nigel (ed.). Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. New York: Routledge. p. 515. ISBN978-0-415-87396-3. Although the Roman conquest initially involved a vast diminution in the games' prestige, they now become open to at least some non-Greeks (the last known victor, of boxing in AD 369, was Varazdates, the crown prince of Armenia).
^Perrottet, Tony (2004). The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games. New York: Random House. p. 190. ISBN978-0-8129-6991-7. A.D. 365 - The last Olympic victor on record is the Armenian prince Varazdate, who won the boxing in the 291st Olympiad. A.D. 393 - Last official Olympic Games (the 293rd). The victors' names are lost.
^Katvalian, Maksim (1985). "Վարազդան [Varazdat]". Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia (in Armenian). Yerevan: Armenian Encyclopedia. pp. 305–306. Վարազդատը աղբյուրներում հայտնի է որպես բազմակողմանի զարգացած մարզիկ (ըստ Մովսես Խորենացու՝ կորովի նետաձիգ, ճարտար գազանամարտիկ, սուսերամարտիկ, ըմբշամարտիկ, բռնցքամարտիկ): Նրա անունը դրոշմվել է մարմարյա սալիկին՝ որպես վերջին օլիմպիադայի (393) չեմպիոնի:
^Young, David C. (2008). A Brief History of the Olympic Games. John Wiley & Sons. p. 135. ISBN9780470777756. For centuries and even a decade ago, historians thought that the very last known Olympic victor probably was not a Greek, but an Armenian prince named Varazdates. Varazdates' supposed victory is attested only in a murky Armenian source (Moses of Khoren, History of Armenia 3.40).1 Since Varazdates reigned from 374-8, conjectures place his rather doubtful victory, mentioned only in an Armenian history of Armenia, in the 360s ad.
^"...his celebration of Trdat and Varazdat's improbable "Olympic" victories..."
Garsoïan, Nina (1996). "The Two Voices of Armenian Mediaeval Historiography". Studia Iranica. 25 (1). doi:10.2143/SI.25.1.2003965. p. 17 "Xorenac'i's [...] celebration of Trdat and Varazdat's improbable "Olympic" victories [...] are surely forced and far-fetched."; p. 40, n. 132 "The allusion to Trdat's Olympic victories may be taken from [Agathangelos], whom Xorenac'i acknowledges as a source, although the earlier author mentions these victories only in passing, and not in the section relating to Trdat, borrowed by MX at this point. Varazdat's pugilistic and other triumphs are MX's own invention."
^Garsoïan, Nina G. (1989). The Epic Histories (Buzandaran Patmut'iwnk') Attributed to P'awstos Buzand. Harvard University Press. p. 326. ISBN9780674258655. BP brief reference to Varazdat's vigor and "valiant heart" is elaborated by MX, III.xl (= MK, pp. 301-302) into an Olympic victory at Pisa and other unlikely epic feats.
^ abArmenian father; see "'Rome 1960': Politics at play in Olympic Games". Today. 7 July 2008. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2012. His father, an Armenian-born discus thrower, and his mother, a Ukrainian volleyball player, had met at the Kiev State Institute of Physical Education, and both taught there while he was growing up.
^Armenian mother; see "Manuela Maleeva–Female tennis player". events.bg. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 20 August 2012. The mother, who came from a prominent Armenian family, which found refuge in Bulgaria after the 1896 Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire, was the best Bulgarian tennis player in the 1960s.
^Armenian father; see Павел Сукосян: от Каршакевича я натерпелся. pressball.by (in Russian). Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 24 December 2013. Отец мой действительно армянин, из Ленинакана.
^"Pavel Sukisian". databaseOlympics.com. Archived from the original on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
^"Dalaloyan: We Were Booed in Glasgow". gymnovosti.com. December 10, 2018. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2021. My father is Armenian. By the way, I've never been to Armenia.
Parsadanyan, Albert (2003). Գիտելիքների շտեմարան [Knowledge Warehouse] (in Armenian). Vol. 1. Yerevan: VMV-Print. pp. 152–158. ISBN99930-960-4-0. [a list of ethnic Armenian medalists up to 2000]
Gold
Soviet Union
United States
Silver
OAR
