Ken Topalian

Ken Topalian
nation	Armenia
birthday	5th July 1963
place of birth	Pawtucket ,  United States
date of death	August 31, 2015
Career

Kenneth James "Ken" Topalian (born July 5, 1963 in Pawtucket ; † August 31, 2015 ) was an Armenian bobsledder . At the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer , he started as the first bobsleigh driver for Armenia.

Career

Born in the United States , Topalian was still a hurdler in high school, but stopped playing during his studies at the University of Rhode Island . After graduating, Topalian worked in a car repair shop. With the independence of Armenia , he and his friend Joe Almasian planned to set up a two-man bobsleigh team for Armenia at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer . They were inspired by the former professional Paul Varadian , whom Topalian knew from the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF). From the end of 1992 Topalian and Almasian trained weekly on the Olympic track in Lake Placid under the former US bobsleigh driver Jim Hickey . Two weeks before the Games, the Armenian government gave both of them their starting authorization. As so far (as of 2018) the only Olympic bobsledder in Armenia, the duo reached 36th place in the two-man bobsleigh. But it remained the only international start for both of them. After the Games, Topalian withdrew completely from the sports field and founded several car dealerships and auto repair shops on Rhode Island.

Web links

• Ken Topalian in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Ken Topalian on Olympic.org  - The Official website of the Olympic movement (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mark Gavoor: Friday at the AYF Olympics. In: armenianweekly.com. September 8, 2015, accessed April 8, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Ira Berkow: Winter Olympics; Even With Defeat, Armenian-American Bobsled Is a Success. In: The New York Times . February 21, 1994, accessed April 8, 2019 .