XXXIII Olympiad Paris 2024 started on 26 July and ended on 11 August after a competitive 17 days of sports. Approximately 10,500 athletes from 203 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) competed across 32 sports in 329 events at the games this year.
From breaking records to emotional representations, the Olympics has made unforgettable memories. While the United States leads the overall rankings with 126 medals and is followed by China with 91 medals, Türkiye finished the games 64th by earning eight medals, 3 silver, and 5 bronze.
Team Türkiye participated in the Paris Games with 102 athletes across 18 sports: Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Boxing, Cycling, Fencing, Gymnastics, Judo, Modern Pentathlon, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Volleyball, Weightlifting, and Wrestling.
Our Medalist Achievements
In archery, Türkiye's men's team, consisting of Mete Gazoz, Ulaş Berkim Tümer, and Muhammed Abdullah Yıldırmış, secured a bronze medal.
In a historic achievement for Türkiye, the country won its first Olympic medal in shooting. Şevval İlayda Tarhan and Yusuf Dikeç earned a silver medal in the mixed team 10-meter air pistol event. Dikeç gained notable attention for his unconventional shooting style, where he used standard glasses and yellow earplugs, and kept one hand in his pocket, eschewing typical shooting gear like visors and blinders. His unique approach garnered significant media attention and led to widespread imitation among athletes, including pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, who emulated his pose as a celebration after breaking the pole vault world record.
The Turkish boxing team has shined the most with its assertive results throughout the tournament. In women’s 50 kg, Buse Naz Çakıroğlu lost to her Chinese opponent in the final, came second, and secured a silver medal for her country. Moreover, Hatice Akbaş concluded her first Olympic games in second place and earned a silver medal in women’s 54 kg. Along with her medalist counterparts, Esra Yıldız Kahraman secured a podium in women’s 57 kg with a bronze medal after her loss in the semifinals.
In men's freestyle 125 kg wrestling, Taha Akgül won a bronze medal by defeating his Kyrgyz opponent Aiaal Lazarev with a score of 7-0. Additionally, in women's freestyle 68 kg wrestling, Buse Tosun Çavuşoğlu secured a bronze medal by overcoming her North Korean rival with a score of 4-2.
In the bronze medal match for women’s +67 kg taekwondo, Nafia Kuş Aydın defeated the British athlete Rebecca McGowan with a score of 2-1, securing third place in the Olympics.
Honorable Mentions
Although the Sultans of the Net did not achieve a podium finish at the Olympics, their performance warrants honorable mention for their tenacity and determination. Despite the challenge of having multiple key players sidelined by injury, the team exhibited a strong offensive strategy and consistently applied pressure on their opponents.
The Sultans carried the team to their first Olympic semifinal and made history. After losing to Italy in the semifinals, the Sultans fought for the bronze medal against Brazil, alas, they lost 3-1 and placed right outside the top three. Following the match, team captain Eda Erdem expressed pride in her team and the technical staff for their perseverance despite significant injuries. She also noted that the team has a promising future. Additionally, Melissa Vargas distinguished herself by becoming the top scorer in women’s volleyball, amassing 159 points during the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Another first for Türkiye’s Olympic journey came from 16-year-old swimmer, Kuzey Tunçelli. He represented Türkiye at the swimming finals for the first time in its history and came 5th in the men’s 1500m freestyle in Paris. Moreover, Tunçelli broke his own World Junior record with a 14:41.22.
Worst Olympic Season In 40 Years
Since the 1984 Los Angeles Games, Türkiye has consistently won gold medals in every Olympic Games up to this year. However, after 40 years of this successful streak, Türkiye has experienced its least productive Olympic season. This raises the question of why many talented and accomplished athletes from Türkiye struggle to secure medals despite their capabilities.
The first vital reason that underlies this unfortunate outcome is the lack of financial support for sports in Türkiye. No one should expect athletes to maintain their training-camp-tournament triangle without sufficient funding. Olympic athletes dedicate four years to preparing for the next Games, thereby requiring essential financial support and professional treatment throughout this period if a medal is the ultimate goal.
Leading countries in the Olympic medal rankings have developed various programs in this regard for many years. For instance, about 230 million dollars flowed from the US Olympic program to its athletes in the period leading up to Paris 2024. The UK Sport has provided around 260 million pounds of support to British Olympic athletes over the last four years. All these efforts are aimed at allowing athletes to prepare themselves the best and solely focus on their sport over the four years.
However, this isn’t the case for Türkiye. Even though the nation has made attempts to aid its Olympic athletes financially, it is not as widely publicized as in other countries. Yet, it is known that the amount of this support is inconsistent and often varies depending on the popularity of the sport and the level of previous achievements. Turkish athletes frequently report on media that the support they receive is highly limited and only comes in the three months leading up to the Olympics rather than the entire four-year cycle. Therefore, it is clear even in the rankings that the countries endorsing their athletes financially lead the statistics, while the countries helping just for three months fail to bring success.
Further errors in the system are the inadequate number of coaches and the coaches’ inadequacy. Especially at the lower level of sports, coaches and trainers mostly don’t have the proficient education, experience, vision, and mentality to raise Olympic athletes. Even though athletes come across a qualified coach, finding the right sports center for Olympic training that provides the necessary equipment and facilities is very difficult due to the lack of decent centers.
Apart from the financial and physical conditions, the moral support an Olympic athlete receives from their nation is highly crucial in perpetuating motivation. Regardless of whether an athlete has a successful or unsuccessful run at the Olympics, the public’s moral support should remain devoted, as these athletes represent their country on the world stage, and national support is vital. It should be kept in mind that these athletes go through qualifying to get the chance to represent their country and even that is a triumph and pride by itself for the nation. However, in Türkiye, there is a fanatic culture when it comes to following sports. Turkish audience adores their athletes only if they succeed. Nevertheless, in case of failure, they are also the ones who disgrace and criticize their own representatives in the first place. Therefore, Turkish athletes endure additional pressure throughout the games to avoid disappointing their nation or facing cancellation, which leads to mental exhaustion more quickly and easily than their opponents.
If we look at the root cause of all the problems listed above, it is clear that children are growing up distant from sports, and the families and the education system are responsible for it. Children do not play on the streets like they used to before, they rather choose to spend their time online. They don’t even pay attention to the physical education lessons at school, it is mostly seen as a waste of time. Parents teach their kids that if it isn’t math, chemistry, or physics, they are not necessary for their future since it won’t help them in the university entrance exam and give them a white-collar job. Due to children thriving in an environment that only cares about passing exams and securing a job and eventually getting brainwashed into believing sports are a waste of time, they fall out of sports. Therefore this creates not only a current problem but also an alarming concern for the future: a lack of new faces among the next Olympic generation.
Though Türkiye had an unfortunate season at the Paris 2024 Olympics, prospects for the Los Angeles 2028 Games remain promising. Emerging athletes such as Kuzey Tunçelli, Elif Berra Gökkır, Berke Akçam, Nisanur Erbil, and Şevval İlayda Tarhan, who made their Olympic debuts, have raised expectations for future success. In Paris, seven Turkish athletes achieved 5th place, indicating that with appropriate support, their rankings could improve. To avoid another medal-less outcome, Türkiye will need to provide substantial financial, educational, and moral support to its athletes as the countdown to the next games begins.
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