Naim Suleymanoglu

Naim Suleymanoglu
Personal information
Surname:	Naim Suleymanov Naum Schalamanow (until 1986)
Nationality:	Bulgaria Turkey since 1986
Date of birth:	January 23, 1967
Place of birth:	Turkey
Date of death:	17th November 2017
Place of death:	Istanbul , Turkey
Size:	147 cm
Medal table

Naim Süleymanoğlu ( Bulgarian Наим Сюлейманоглу Naim Sulejmanoglu ; born January 23, 1967 in Ptitschar , Bulgaria , as Naim Sulemanow [ Bulgarian Наим Сулейманов ]; † November 17, 2017 in Istanbul , Turkey ) was a Bulgarian-Turkish weight lifter .

life and career

Süleymanoğlu was born as a member of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria under the name Naim Süleymanoğlu. He started lifting weights very early and set his first world record in 1983. In the same year, at the age of 16, Süleymanoğlu was the youngest weightlifting world champion to date, when he won the gold medal in the bantamweight division in the tear . In addition, the exceptional athlete succeeded as the second lifter after the Bulgarian Stefan Topurow to push three times his own body weight. This fact, in connection with his small body size, earned him the nickname "Pocket Hercules" (Turkish: Cep-Herkülü ), by which he is still known today in the weightlifting scene .

In the course of the Bulgarization campaign in his home country, Süleymanoğlu had to change his name to Naum Schalamanow (Bulgarian Наум Шаламанов) on the instructions of the authorities . Under this name he started at the 1986 World Weightlifting Championships in Sofia, where he won his titles number five to seven. After the World Cup, he left for Turkey during a trip to Australia , took on Turkish citizenship and changed his name to Naim Süleymanoğlu . In the following period the Bulgarian state tried to ban its international appearances, but was able to come to an agreement with Turkey in return for a large sum of money.

For Turkey, Süleymanoğlu won three times Olympic gold in featherweight : 1988 in Seoul , 1992 in Barcelona and 1996 in Atlanta . After the unsuccessful attempt at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney as the first weightlifter to win the fourth gold medal in a row, he ended his sporting career and turned to politics. He ran in the local elections in 2004 for Party of the Nationalist Movement (MHP) for a mayor's office in Büyükçekmece and in 2007 for a member of parliament; both times it was unsuccessful. He was awarded the Olympic Order and was awarded the Sedat-Simavi Prize for Sports in 1988, 1991, 1994 and 1996 .

Süleymanoğlu died on November 17, 2017 in Istanbul after a liver transplant .

relationship

His brother Muharrem (* 1969) also took part in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona as a weight lifter.

Web links

Commons : Naim Süleymanoğlu  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Naim Süleymanoğlu in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Naim Süleymanoğlu at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Profile of Naim Süleymanoğlu in the lift-up project at chidlovski.net (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ General sports: “Westentaschen-Herkules” Naim Süleymanoglu died. sid message on Zeit Online , November 18, 2017, accessed November 19, 2017 .