Sümeyye Manz

Sümeyye Manz medal table
Germany
World championships
bronze	2005 Madrid	up to 47 kg
bronze	2011 Gyeongju	up to 46 kg
European championships
bronze	2005 Riga	up to 47 kg
gold	2008 Rome	up to 47 kg

Sümeyye Manz , née Gülec , (born October 30, 1989 in Nuremberg ) is a German Taekwondo fighter of Turkish descent. The 16-time German champion is also internationally successful. She has already stood on the podium twelve times at the European A-Class tournaments, seven of them at the top. In 2005 she reached third place at the European Championships for Juniors and Seniors. In 2010, she won silver at both the European Junior Championships and the World Military Championships. Her greatest successes to date are the bronze medals at the Taekwondo World Championships in 2005 and 2011 , the gold medal at the European Championships in 2008 and qualifying for the Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012 .

Career

Sümeyye Manz started taekwondo sport at the age of five in the club of her uncle Özer Gülec (Taekwondo Özer in Nuremberg). Even today she still starts for her home club TKD Özer , but trains most of the time under the Bundeswehr national trainer Georg Streif and the women's national trainer Carlos Esteves . She has been a sports soldier in the German Armed Forces since 2007 . On April 18, 2009 she married the equally successful Taekwondo in Daniel Manz . Their son Aurelio Kaan was born on June 26, 2009, followed by twins İlyas and Taylan on April 25, 2013.

She had her first international appearance at the European Youth Championships in Athens in 2003 , where she took 5th place in the 42 kg class. A year later she took part in the World Youth Championships in South Korea without reaching the top ranks.

The first highlight of the season in 2005 was the European Youth Championship in Baku . There she fought in the class up to 46 kg and won bronze. Shortly afterwards, at the age of 15, she competed for the first time at the senior Taekwondo World Championships. There Manz fought his way up to the semi-finals in the 47 kg class and lost after a 2-0 lead with 2: 3 against later world champion Belen Asensio from Spain. However, that was enough to win the bronze medal. At the end of the year she was able to win the bronze medal again at the European Championships in Riga .

In 2006 she won the Belgium Open and came second at the German Open. In addition, after five German youth and junior titles, she won the German women's championships for the first time. At the Youth World Cup in Vietnam , she could not achieve outstanding results. In 2007 she became German champion again and won the German Open, the Trelleborg Open and the US Open. At the World Cup in Beijing , she was eliminated in the second round.

In 2008 she was at the top of the podium at the European Championships in Rome for the first time in major international championships. With a final victory over the Turkish Kadriye Selimoglu she won the gold medal and helped the German team to second place in the medal table. A short time later, she took 3rd place at the CISM Military World Championships in Seoul .

At the beginning of 2008, Sümeyye Manz bought the Olympic ticket by taking third place in the European Olympic qualification in Istanbul . So she was one of four German Taekwondo fighters at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. At the Olympics, she could not reach the medal ranks. She was eliminated in the first round against Dalia Contreras Riveiro from Venezuela , who later won a bronze medal.

Due to her Turkish descent, Sümeyye Manz was repeatedly the victim of neo-Nazi attacks on the Internet in the run-up to the Olympic Games .

At the 2010 European Junior Championships in Kharkiv she won the silver medal. In the same year she was also runner-up at the CISM military world championships in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu .

In 2011 she qualified for participation in her third world championships. As in 2005, she won the bronze medal at the 2011 Taekwondo World Championships in Gyeongju , one of two medals awarded by the German Taekwondo Union (DTU) team.

Sümeyye Manz and Helena Fromm are the only German Taekwondo athletes who have won medals at two senior world championships.

In January 2012 Manz qualified for the 2012 Olympic Games in London by finishing second at the European Taekwondo qualification tournament in Kazan, Russia .

Web links

• Sümeyye Manz in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Official fan page on Facebook
• Jürgen Roos: German-Turkish martial artist: The ultimate kick. taz die tageszeitung, July 18, 2008, accessed on May 8, 2011 . 
• Contribution about Sümeyye Gülec in the Bavarian radio

References and comments

1. ^ Successes by Sümeyye Manz (Gülec). TAEKWONDO Data, accessed May 8, 2011 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} sid: Taekwondoka Manz buys Olympic ticket. FOCUS Online, accessed January 27, 2012 . 
3. ↑ News: Sümeyye Gülec and Daniel Manz say yes. Taekwondo Competence Center Friedrichshafen, April 18, 2009, accessed on May 8, 2011 . 
4. ↑ News: "Kaan" is on planet. Taekwondo Competence Center Friedrichshafen, June 26, 2009, accessed on May 8, 2011 . 
5. ↑ Archive: 17th men and 10th women Taekwondo World Championships 2005. TaeKwonDo Özer e. V., 2005, accessed May 8, 2011 . 
6. ↑ Results 10-4-2008; Page 3. (No longer available online.) Roma 2008 European Taekwondo Championships, April 2008, formerly the original ; accessed on May 8, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
7. ↑ Archive: Gold in Korea. Joint Support of the Armed Forces, May 28th 2008, accessed 8 May 2011 . 
8. ↑ Press 2008: Olympic qualifications. (No longer available online.) Taekwondo Community Allgäu, 2008, archived from the original on February 11, 2009 ; Retrieved May 8, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ^ Olympia-off for Gülec and Tuncat. FOCUS Online, August 20, 2008, accessed May 8, 2011 . 
10. ↑ Helmut Reister: Neo-Nazis threaten the Nuremberg Olympic star. Abendzeitung Nürnberg, June 13, 2008, accessed on July 1, 2013 . 
11. ↑ Second World Cup bronze medal for Sümeyye Manz, Korea 2011. (No longer available online.) TaeKwonDo Özer e. V., May 5, 2011, archived from the original on September 12, 2011 ; Retrieved May 8, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.