Sports In Turkey Article Index for
Sports In
Website Links For
Sports
 

Information About

Sports In Turkey




Weightlifting has been another successful sport for Turkey, regulary relied upon to provide gold medals in the Olympics . Its most famous Weightlifters Naim Suleymanoglu and Halil Mutlu are only two of four weightlifters in the world to have won 3 gold medals in 3 olympics.

Athletics is another fast improving sport, Sureyya Ayhan set the 1500m world record in 2003 and Elvan Abeylegesse set a new 5000m record in 2004 .

Turkey placed a bid to become a candidate for the 2012 olympics but was eliminated in the initial rounds. Part of its bid included the building of the 80,000 seater Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul . The stadium was used for the 2005 European Champions League final.

Another world event for Turkey will be its addition to the Formula 1 season. The Track located at Istanbul will have a planned Seating Capacity of 155,000 people, is just over 5,340 m long and will run anti-clockwise. The track was designed by Hermann Tilke , designer of the Sepang , Bahrain and Shanghai tracks, and will make its debut on the August 21 , 2005 .

Basketball is also gaining popularity in Turkey. Two Turkish nationals, Hedo Turkoglu and Mehmet Okur , have achieved success in the prestigious NBA of North America , generally considered the world's top basketball league.


SEE ALSO