YEREVAN. – “To our reporter’s observation that sports and politics are interconnected, international chess grandmaster [, and member of Armenia’s men’s national team which recently was crowned third-time champion at the 40th World Chess Olympiad, which was held in Istanbul, Turkey,] Gabriel Sargissian responded: ‘Yes, there is political pressure. And I can say from the very example of the Azerbaijani team that this very pressure was the reason why they wanted to show that they are patriotic, that they take risks. [But] In our case, there was no pressure,’” 168 Zham daily writes and continues.    

“And to the journalist’s observation that this time the victory took place in Turkey, [and] we played the winning [and final] round against Hungary’s team, our team’s [head] coach Arshak Petrosyan responded: ‘This time several political developments coincided. But it’s impossible to deny that winning in Istanbul, when your country’s [national] anthem is performed, [when] your country’s flag is being raised, truly needed to be stressed.’   

But, first and foremost, we play chess and we work to achieve our goal in our task.”