Turkey’s legendary triple Olympic gold-medal-winning weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu, the diminutive “pocket Hercules,” has died at 50, state media said.
Suleymanoglu, who was only 1.47m tall, scored a historic hat-trick of consecutive Olympic titles starting in Seoul in 1988, then Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta in 1996.
Suleymanoglu’s exploits made him a national hero in Turkey, where he is regarded as one of the greatest sports personalities in the nation’s history.
The path to stardom for Suleymanoglu, who was born Naim Suleimanov as a member of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, was not smooth.
He initially competed for Bulgaria, but defected in December 1986 during the Weightlifting World Cup in Melbourne.
In an episode that caused a sensation at the time, Suleymanoglu left for London aboard the Turkish prime minister’s jet, which took him on to Turkey where he was given a hero’s welcome.
The tiny Suleymananoglu wowed spectators with his power and was one of few weightlifters who managed to clean and jerk three times his own bodyweight.
He built up one of the sport’s greatest ever rivalries with Greece’s Valerios Leonidis, which was followed avidly by Turkish and Greek communities across the world.
He also dabbled in politics, paying particular attention to the welfare of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria and standing as a candidate for parliament.
He is the only weightlifter to win gold medals at three different Olympic Games.
His exploits in Seoul in 1988 made him one of the stars of the games. Time magazine put him on the cover of its Games issue with one arm aloft in triumph under the headline: “Everybody Wins.”
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