Armenia has announced that it was donating bikes to secondary schools and colleges ahead of an upcoming cycling tournament later this month, in a move likely inspired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s fondness of cycling.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports announced that it had allocated 766 bikes to schools across Armenia to organise and prepare an amateur bicycle tournament as part of the Prime Minister's Cup. They stated that more bikes will be delivered to the rest of Armenia’s provinces. 

The government also set aside a total of ֏8 million ($21,000) in prize money for schoolchildren participating in the tournament, in addition to creating awards for the winners and physical education teachers.

The tournament is scheduled to take place between 20–29 September. Students are expected to take part in the competition in teams of pairs featuring one girl and one boy, in which they will cycle along 20 kilometres of a road in Gegharkunik.

The ministry said the tournament aimed at ‘popularising cycling and a healthy lifestyle in the republic, [and] to promote physical education and sports among schoolchildren’.

Armenia has been hosting the Prime Minister’s Cup since 2021, featuring a variety of different sports. This year, it introduced cycling and table tennis for schoolchildren only as part of the competition.

The Ministry of Sports and Education first announced they were giving 6,500 bicycles to schools around the country for the competition in March, adding that the schools would get to keep the bikes so that schoolchildren could cycle more.

‘Long live the bike’

The tournament was likely inspired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s fondness of cycling.

After coming to power in 2018, Pashinyan began cycling to his office, which came as a surprise to many, as previous leaders kept their distance from the public and avoided journalists.

The Prime Minister appeared to cycle more often after being criticised by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the leader of the anti-government Tavush for the Motherland movement, who stated in May that ‘a man who used to roam the streets on a bicycle has now brought dozens of policemen to a standstill, paralysing the city’.

He has posted videos of his bicycle rides on his TikTok account, which also features short videos showing his family life, as well as meetings and events he attends.

Initially, he would post videos of himself cycling to his office, but on 2 June, on the eve of World Bicycle Day, Pashinyan posted a video in which he praised bikes, and added that the purpose of his ‘public bicycle ride [that day] is to draw the attention of us all to a healthy lifestyle and bicycle culture’.

Three days later, Pashinyan extended an open invitation to those interested in joining him on his bike rides. He instructed viewers to submit applications to his email address, and told them that they could join him under four conditions, including not politicising the ride and to return to their starting point at 07:00 sharp, ‘because [that’s when] the working day starts’.

His cycling videos have since become more consistent, with some even featuring his wife, Anna Hakobyan. Pashinyan has also posted cycling videos he took during working visits to European capitals.

Pashinyan said that the high number of cyclists he had seen in Copenhagen, Denmark ‘was very inspiring and beautiful’.

Pashinyan has closed off most captions on his cycling videos with ‘long live the bike!’.

The Prime Minister’s cycling initiatives were met with some criticism in Armenia, with some pointing out that Yerevan lacked bicycle lanes. 

In late August, Pashinyan’s government held the Tour de Sevan 2024 event, which saw cyclists riding around Lake Sevan over two days. At the time, the government was criticised for allocating ֏15 million ($39,000) from the state budget without the procurement of a tender.

CivilNet has reported that the budget for the event included tent and bicycle rentals, as well as food services. They added that members of the ruling Civil Contract party had participated in the cycling event.

‘In fact, we pay for them to hold races and revelry with party members’, said the host of CivilNet’s programme.

Armenian leaders have long tried to popularise sports in the country and amongst schoolchildren. In 2011, President Serzh Sargsyan’s administration made chess compulsory for grades 2–4, making Armenia the first country to introduce compulsory chess classes in the world. Sargsyan’s administration also introduced its own annual competition, the Best Sports Family competition.

Armenia’s second president, Robert Kocharyan, is also known to lead an active lifestyle.

Read in Azerbaijani on Meydan TV.