Head Coach of Armenia national diving team Hrachya Chandiryan said that hard work and dedication helped them win bronze medal in the European Championship.
Chandiryan summed up the results of his athletes’ performances in an interview to Mediamax Sport reporter.
Vladimir Harutyunyan and Lev Sargsyan won the first European Championship medal in the history of independent Armenia. The medal was achieved in 10m platform diving. We registered success thanks to our hard work, and God was with us too.
We fell behind the leaders by 15 points after the 1st and 2nd dives, but I knew that we would become medalists if the penultimate jump was a success. It turned out just as I previewed, they succeeded in the 5th most difficult dive and improved their positions. My athletes scored only 3 points less than the British athletes, who took the second place.
Armenia doesn’t offer opportunities to train for synchronized diving, we synchronize the elements and do exercises only in the hall. The athletes trained in water for two times only and in the competition place. Everyone approached me and asked how we did all those incredible things.
I was happy only for a few seconds after the medal, while this is a result of years of hard work in our conditions. We will see how the attention towards our sport changes. We will hope that it will increase and we will have good swimming pools, diving platforms and springboards to prepare for the Olympic Games.
I am also satisfied with other performances of the Armenian team. Vladimir and Azat were in the 8th position in 3m springboard diving, which is their maximum at this moment. Vardan Bayanduryan got food poisoning and wasn’t able to participate in the competition. This is the reason why he didn’t succeed in the qualification. Lev started confidently in 10m platform diving and was among the 3 best, but he failed the 3rd and 4th jumps and appeared in the 7th position.
The athletes will have some break and then they will continue trainings.