FIDE World Youth U16 Chess Olympiad 1998 took place in Istanbul. Levon Aronian, Tigran Petrosyan, Gabriel Sargsyan and Varuzhan Hakobyan represented the Armenian national chess team, led by Volodya Hayrapetyan.
Armenian young people performed perfectly, becoming champions with total 27points. Ukraine, winner of the second place, fell behind Armenia with 5 points.
This picture was taken in Yerevan, when the team came home with gold medals. Tigran Pertosyan tells about his memories in our In one shot series.
I was not so mature back then to understand the meaning of that medal. Nevertheless, this was the first major victory in youth chess both for me and Armenia.
We achieved this victory easier than we could have imagined. We led the tournament from the very beginning and registered victories up to the last round.
Many of our compatriots came to support us. By and large, Armenian community in Istanbul warmly welcomed us. I still remember the reception, that they organized for us after the tournament.
We were also hosted at Agos weekly newspaper, where we met great Armenian patriot Hrant Dink. Frankly speaking, I do not remember the details, but Agos actively covered our performances those days.
In fact, we had a great desire to compete with adults as well and become champions. As you may know, we succeeded with the same composition (except for Varuzhan Hakobyan). Now we only have to win in veteran tournament together (laughs).
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