Naim Süleymanoğlu

[Antepli Ejderha]

Naim Süleymanoğlu has passed away at the age of 50. It appears be underwent a liver transplant a month ago but it wasn't successful.

The only weightlifting I've ever followed was in the Olympics and so some of his records there are absolutely staggering. From Wikipedia:

He is the first and only weightlifter to have snatched 2.5 times his body weight and also is the second of only seven lifters to date to clean and jerk three times his body weight. He is the only weightlifter to date to clean and jerk 10 kilos more than triple his bodyweight.

As a Bulgarian Turk he fled to Turkey after the process of forced assimilation of the Turkish speaking minority that included changing their names to an accepted Bulgarian form. I never knew that Turkey paid over a million dollars to allow Naim Süleymanoğlu to compete for them.

[ursus arctos]

Sad news

He was absolutely phenomenal

[Antepli Ejderha]

I saw him in the street once when I was living in Turkey, he was both tiny and huge at the same time.

Apparently he died from a brain haemorrhage. Really sad news.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Naim Süleymanoğlu's obituary is well worth reading, he achieved so much but felt he had had his childhood taken from him. Perhaps that explains the drinking/alcoholism that ultimately killed him.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...y_to_clipboard