Hrant Shahinyan

Hrant Shahinjan medal table
do gymnastics
Soviet Union
Olympic Summer Games
gold	1952 Helsinki	Ring gymnastics
gold	1952 Helsinki	Team all-around
silver	1952 Helsinki	Individual all-around
silver	1952 Helsinki	Pommel horse
World championships in apparatus gymnastics
gold	1954 Rome	Pommel horse
gold	1954 Rome	Team all-around
bronze	1954 Rome	Individual all-around

Hrant Shahinjan ( Armenian "Հրանտ ՇաՀինյան" ; born  July 30, 1923 in Gjulagarak, Lori Province ; †  May 29, 1998 in Yerevan ) was a Soviet gymnast of Armenian origin.

After the Second World War , Hrant Shahinjan had to overcome a wound in his leg before he could resume training. In 1952 he took part in the Olympic Summer Games in the Finnish capital Helsinki , where he won two gold medals in ring gymnastics and in team all-around as well as two silver medals on pommel horse and in individual all-around. Two years later, in Rome in 1954 , he was part of the Soviet team at the world gymnastics championships . There he won gold in the team all-around competition and thus repeated the success of Helsinki. In addition, he was able to secure first place in the competition on the pommel horse and the bronze medal in the individual all-around.

Although Hrant Shahinjan started for the Soviet Union , in which he was awarded the honorary title “Honored Master of Sport”, he has been considered the first Olympic champion in the country's sporting history since the independence of Armenia. On his initiative, a sports school for apparatus gymnastics was founded in Yerevan in 1958, whose director he was until the end of his life and which has been named after his death. The Armenian National Olympic Committee has been awarding the Hrant Shahinyan Medal to distinguished athletes and sports officials in the country since 2005.

Web links

• Hrant Schahinjan in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )