Today, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Mrs. Anna Hakobyan attended the final round of the amateur table tennis tournament "Cup of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia" in the city of Charentsavan, Kotayk region. The "Cup of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia-2023" amateur tournaments kick off with the table tennis tournament for the second time.

Nikol Pashinyan and Anna Hakobyan watched the course of the 4 final games of the tournament, which were held at the Children's and Youth Sports School named after Ara Manukyan in Charentsavan. After the competitions, an awarding ceremony was held.

The amateur table tennis tournament was held in Yerevan and in all provinces of Armenia, in 2 rounds, 2 age groups participated: women and men aged 18-40 and and above 40. The participants who took 1-3 places in the 2 age groups in the first round competed in the final round. Participants who took 1st-10th place in 2 age groups were awarded with certificates, medals and cash prizes by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports. The monetary award for the 1st place was 1,000,000 AMD, 2nd place: 500,000 AMD, 3rd place: 300,000 AMD, 4th place: 100,000 AMD, 5th-10th place: 50,000 AMD each. The participants who won the 1st place were also awarded symbolic cups.

The Prime Minister presented awards to the winners of the 1st-3rd places in the men's 18-40 age group, as well as souvenirs and diplomas to the 2 oldest participants, Emma Arakelyan and Karen Beglaryan, who are from Syunik Province. The rest of the awards were presented by the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Zhanna Andreasyan, Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Karen Giloyan, Deputy Minister of Health Lena Nanushyan.

After the award ceremont, the Prime Minister gava a speech, noting,

“Dear attendees,

First of all, let me once again congratulate the award winners.

The Prime Minister's Table Tennis Cup is being held for the second year. We are conducting this tournament first to popularize sports and physical education. You know that every time we acquire a completely new property for the tennis tournament, and after the tournament, this property is transferred to the regional sports schools, so that this sport - table tennis - develops, healthy lifestyle develops, the spirit of competition develops, the will to win develops and thus, the spirit of unity and integrity develops as well.

You may have noticed that this year we have made changes to the symbols of the tournament. We already have medals and emblems specially produced for the Prime Minister's Cup. This also shows the development of this idea, the initiative. What we see on the competition platform tells and speaks about many things. We see the will to win, the spirit, we see success, failure. It is also by seeing and participating that we should be able to live with all that, overcome failures, despair, form the will to win and have a decision that we must definitely achieve our goal. And our goal is to have a strong, powerful, prosperous state, to have a Republic of Armenia, so that gyms of this type become a usual thing in the Republic of Armenia, in all our settlements, in all villages, in all districts. Thousands, tens of thousands of children, adults would enter these sports halls to strengthen and educate their will, adults would serve as an example to the youth. And we can eventually heal ourselves physically, psychologically and morally.

I want to thank all the participants. Of course, we saw familiar faces from last year's tournament. We already have double cup winners in 3 forms this year, but we also saw some new faces among this year’s winners. And I want to especially congratulate them, our two-time award winners, and express hope that with the increase in the number of participants and infrastructure, the competition will also strengthen, and we will have new champions. But, of course, it is important that they win in a fair competition and win, first of all, because of their will. The Prime Minister's Cup is about celebrating human life and the human will.

In the end, I want to thank all the organizers, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports. We see that every time we show a special zeal for our organizational nuances, and that first of all shows our respect for the participants, the sport and the spectators.

I thank you all and wish success to all of us."

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2069 people participated in the second amateur table tennis tournament this year against about 1620 participants last year. In terms of the number of participants, the city of Yerevan ranks first (600), Gegharkunik Province is the 2nd (235), and Shirak Province is the 3rd (205). Amateur tournaments "Cup of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia" are held since 2022 and are continuous. In 2022, 5 tournaments were held: table tennis, team road race for schoolchildren, bicycle race, swimming in Lake Sevan and road race with a total of about 5300 participants.