Bulgaria Wrestling Team Coach Starts Hunger Strike to Protest IOC Proposal

Armen Nazaryan, head coach of Bulgarian wrestling team, is pictured here with Bulgaria’s London Olympics hero – Stanka Zlateva. Photo by BGNES

Armen Nazaryan, coach of the Bulgarian national wrestling team, has started a hunger strike against the proposal of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to take the sport off the 2020 Olympic Games program.

"I am going on a hunger strike to protest the proposal of the Initiative Committee of the IOC. There have always been problems with the Olympic program and it is a mistake to remove wrestling from it. I am starting a hunger strike, I will only drink syrup. I will end the hunger strike for the European Championship starting on March 22 in Tbilisi," Nazaryan stated, as cited by the website of the Russian Wrestling Federation and Sega daily.

Nazaryan is two-time Olympic champion and six-time European champion.

"I hope that my actions will make the IOC reconsider the case. Wrestlers are trying to protest the decision of the IOC. The President of the Bulgarian Wrestling Federation, Valentin Yordanov, for instance, returned his Olympic medal," Nazaryan added.

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