Gor Minasyan

Gor Tugran A. Minasyan was born on October 25th, 1994, and he’s a notable Armenian-Bahraini weightlifter who competes in the super-heavyweight category. His performances are impressive – he’s won a silver medal at the 2016 Olympic Games and he’s also won multiple medals in World and Asian Championships. His career spans different weight categories and as of recently, he’s been competing under the Bahraini flag. 

Minasyan’s lifting career took off with a world record in the snatch for the +94 kg category before the 2018 weight class reorganization. Early on, he won a silver medal at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics. 

In 2013, he had a serious setback when he received a two-year suspension because of doping violation. However, he bounced back and quickly resumed his place among the best. At the 2015 World Weightlifting Championships, he won a bronze medal with a total lift of 388 kg – 175 kg in the snatch and 213 kg in the clean and jerk.

He won another medal, this time silver in the +105 kg category, at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. His total lift at the Games was 425 kg – 191 kg snatch and a 234 kg clean and jerk.

His performance stayed just as impressive in the following years. At the 2018 World Championships in Ashgabat, he won a silver medal in the +109 kg category with a total lift of 462 kg. Next year, he won a bronze medal at the 2019 Asian Championships with a total of 430 kg.

In 2021, he won a bronze medal at the World Weightlifting Championships in Tashkent with a total lift of 431 kg, which includes a 194 kg snatch and a 237 kg clean and jerk. 

In 2022, he competed for Bahrain and won a gold medal at the Asian Weightlifting Championships in Manama. His success was repeated in 2023 at the Asian Championships in Jinju, when he lifted a personal record of 464 kg (217 kg snatch and 247 clean and jerk). That same year, at the World Championships, he won bronze with a total of 459 kg. 

His inspiration is a Soviet weightlifter Yurik Vardanyan, whose achievements motivated Minasyan to strive for excellence. As far as future plans go, he wants to continue to compete at the highest level and represent Bahrain.