Svetla Mitkova-Sınırtaş

Svetla Mitkova-Sınırtaş medal table
Shot putter
Bulgaria
World championships
bronze	1995 Gothenburg	19.56 m
European championships
bronze	1994 Helsinki	19.45 m
European Indoor Championships
silver	1992 Genoa	20.06
bronze	1994 Paris	19.09

Svetla Mitkova-Sınırtaş (born in Bulgarian Светла Иванова Миткова , Swetla Iwanowa Mitkowa ; born June 17, 1964 in Medowo , Dobrich ) is a former Turkish athlete of Bulgarian origin, who mainly competed in the shot put . For most of her career, she represented her home country internationally before she accepted Turkish citizenship through marriage in 1999 . She is 1.78 m tall and weighed 96 kg when she was active.

Career

The 26-time Bulgarian champion (22 titles in the shot put, 9 of them in the hall and 4 titles in the discus throw) appeared internationally for the first time at the World Athletics Championships in Helsinki in 1983 with tenth place in the discus throw. In the same discipline, she finished fifth at the European Athletics Championships in 1986 in Stuttgart. In the shot put she was twelfth there. Also with the ball she reached ninth place at the World Athletics Championships in Rome in 1987 , while she was fifth with the discus. At the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, she narrowly missed a medal in the discus throw as fourth and finished tenth in the shot put.

After that, Mitkowa concentrated increasingly on the shot put. After a tenth place at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in 1991 , she won her first international medal in this discipline in 1992. At the European Indoor Athletics Championships, she won the silver medal behind Olympic and world champion Natalja Lissowskaja with a personal best of 20.06 m . In the same year she finished sixth at the Olympic Games in Barcelona . At the World Athletics Championships in 1993 in Stuttgart, she was tenth. Here she also competed in the discus throw, but missed the final.

The two most successful years in Mitkowa's career followed. In 1994 she won the bronze medal in the shot put at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Paris, behind the later Olympic and world champion Astrid Kumbernuss from Germany and the Russian Larissa Peleschenko . Also outdoors Mitkowa won the bronze medal at the European Athletics Championships in Helsinki behind Wita Pawlysch from Ukraine and Astrid Kumbernuss. The third bronze medal for Mitkowa followed at the World Athletics Championships in 1995 in Gothenburg. Once again she had to admit defeat to Astrid Kumbernuss and this time also to the Chinese Huang Zhihong .

The Gothenburg success remained Mitkowa's last international podium finish. In the shot put at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, she failed to qualify. At the World Athletics Championships in Athens in 1997 , however, she reached the final and was ninth there. After their marriage, she started at the 1999 World Athletics Championships in Seville for Turkey, but dropped out in the qualifying round.

Top performances

• Shot put: 20.91 m, May 24, 1987, Sofia
  • Hall: 20.06 m, March 1, 1992, Genoa
• Discus throw: 69.72 m, August 15, 1987, Sofia

Web links

• Svetla Mitkova-Sınırtaş in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Svetla Mitkova-Sınırtaş in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Footnotes

1. ↑ gbrathletics.com: Bulgarian Championships
2. ↑ gbrathletics.com: Bulgarian Indoor Championships