Background
Ara Khachatryan was born on September 13, 1982 in Leninakan, Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Gyumri, Armenia), a city well known for its weightlifters.
Ara Khachatryan was born on September 13, 1982 in Leninakan, Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Gyumri, Armenia), a city well known for its weightlifters.
Under personal trainer Alexan Karapetyan and coach Boghos Poghosyan, Ara began weight training from an early age. Ara joined the Armenian national weightlifting team originally competing at a weight of 77 kg. He repeated the silver medal the next year at the 2008 European Weightlifting Championships in Italy, scoring just 1 kg behind the gold medalist.
In the same year, he went to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where he finished in seventh place.
Later that year Khachatryan competed at the 2010 World Weightlifting Championships, where, after winning the gold medal in the snatch, he received a serious arm injury and was forced to drop out from the competition. Khachatryan competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics, but was unable to set a total.