Naim Suleymanoglu, a Turkish weight lifter whose diminutive size and stunning strength earned him the nickname Pocket Hercules on his way to winning three consecutive Olympic gold medals, died on Saturday in Istanbul. He was 50.
He had been hospitalized in late September with liver failure caused by cirrhosis and had received a transplant on Oct. 6, according to Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, which announced the death. On Nov. 11, he had surgery for a brain hemorrhage.
Suleymanoglu, who stood about 4 feet 10 inches and competed as a featherweight, was internationally known by the time he competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Not only had he set more than 20 world records; he had also defected from Bulgaria, where he and his family were oppressed ethnic Turks, to Turkey, which celebrated him as a national hero.
With flag-waving Turks cheering him in the wrestling auditorium in Seoul, Suleymanoglu (pronounced soo-lay-MAHN-oo-loo) won his first Olympic gold medal.
In the snatch — in which competitors raise the barbell overhead in a single continuous motion — Suleymanoglu lifted 336 pounds on his third and final attempt. Then, in the clean and jerk, which requires raising the barbell to the chest and then overhead, he set a new world record in his weight class by lifting 419 pounds.
“I have done the greatest a man can do in sport, but my thoughts are not on the gold medal or the world records,” Suleymanoglu said before flying from Seoul to Ankara on a jet provided by Prime Minister Turgut Ozal of Turkey, according to Sports Illustrated. “My thoughts are with my family. My deepest hope is that they can join me in Turkey.”
Bulgaria allowed his parents and two brothers to join him in Turkey about a month later.
He celebrated his victory in West Germany, France and the United States. In Washington, he attended the premiere of the movie “Twins,” where he could stand face to face with the equally diminutive Danny DeVito (who co-starred in the movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger) when the two met.
Suleymanoglu’s victory at the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, Spain, was a less dramatic moment. His defection was further in the past. And he did not set any records by defeating a Bulgarian for the gold medal, as he had four years earlier.
“That was 1988,” Suleymanoglu said after his victory. “But now it doesn’t matter at all. Any opponent is the same for me.”
The Turks who cheered for him were nonetheless transfixed by the undersize sports superstar.
“He is all our expectations, someone who can tell our feelings to the whole world,” Levent Bozkurt, a student from Ankara, told The Chicago Tribune. “He is like a leader who shows Turkey’s power, and we just follow him.”
At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Suleymanoglu and his closest rival, Valerios Leonidis of Greece, traded world-record lifts in an epic competition of little men wielding big weights. Their match came down to Leonidis’s final lift. When he failed, Suleymanoglu became the first weight lifter to win gold medals in three successive Olympics.
“You push yourself and he pushes himself harder,” Leonidis said in an interview for “Atlanta’s Olympic Glory” (1997), a documentary directed by Bud Greenspan. “That’s why, when we met before the awards, I said, ‘Naim, you’re the best,’ and he said, ‘No, Valerios, we’re both the best.’ ”
Suleymanoglu was not the only “Pocket Hercules.” Manohar Aich, a 4-foot-11 bodybuilder who won the Mr. Universe competition in 1952, had the same nickname. He died last year, at 103.
Naim Suleimanov was born on Jan. 23, 1967, in Ptichar, Bulgaria. His father, a miner and a farmer, was five feet tall. His mother stood 4-foot-7.
Naim lifted rocks and tree branches as a child; at 14, he won a 19-and-under world title and was presumably going to compete in the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. But Bulgaria joined the Eastern bloc’s boycott, in retaliation for the United States’ refusal to participate in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the year before.
Repression against ethnic Turks was growing in Bulgaria; one measure required them to use Bulgarian adaptations of their names. So Naim Suleimanov became Naum Shalamonov. And he decided that he had to defect.
After winning the gold medal at a World Cup wrestling tournament in Melbourne, Australia, in 1986, he fled from his Bulgarian minders and went into hiding for four days before appearing at the Turkish consulate in Canberra to announce his intention to defect. He flew first to London and then to Istanbul.
Soon after, he changed his name to a Turkish one: Naim Suleymanoglu.
And the Turkish government paid Bulgaria’s weight-lifting federation $1 million (or more, according to some accounts) to expedite Suleymanoglu’s eligibility to compete for his new country in 1988.
Information on survivors was not available.
Suleymanoglu arrived in Sydney, Australia, in 2000, hoping for a fourth successive Olympic gold medal. But he was 33 and smoking 55 cigarettes a day. And, with some hubris, he made a strategic error, choosing to start in the snatch with a very high weight of 319 pounds.
Three times he tried. And three times the Pocket Hercules failed.
As he left the Sydney Convention Center, he told the news media, “Bye-bye, it’s over.”
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Naim Süleymanoğlu (born in Bulgaria as Naim Suleimanov but forced to change to Naum Shalamanov) (Bulgarian: from Наим Сюлейманов to Наум Шаламанов; 23 January 1967 – 18 November 2017) was a Turkish, World and Olympic Champion in weightlifting, who was nicknamed “The Pocket Hercules” because of his small stature of 1.47 m (4 ft 10 in). In the 1988 Summer Olympics, he set a record by lifting 190 kg in the clean and jerk.[1] He was awarded the Olympic Order in 2001. In 2000 and 2004, he was elected a member of the International Weightlifting FederationHall of Fame.[2]
Süleymanoğlu 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.[3] He is the only weightlifter to date to clean and jerk 10 kilos more than triple his bodyweight.[4] Süleymanoğlu set his first world record at age 16 but missed his first chance at Olympic success in 1984, when Bulgaria joined the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.[citation needed]
Süleymanoğlu was born in Ptichar, Kardzhali Province, Bulgaria to a Turkish family. His father was a miner who stood only five feet tall, while is mother was four-foot-seven.[5] He won championships in his teens and may have competed at the 1984 Summer Olympics had Bulgaria not joined in a boycott by the Eastern Bloc.[6]
In the 1980’s Bulgaria’s government implemented a program called the Revival Process which required ethnic minorities to adopt Slavic names and barred their languages.[7] As a result, Süleymanoğlu changed his name to Naum Shalamanov in 1985.[5]
While on a trip to the World Cup Final in Melbourne in 1986, Suleimanov escaped his handlers, and after several days in hiding, he defected at the Turkish Embassy in Canberra. After making his way to Istanbul, he changed his name to Süleymanoğlu.[5]
In order for him to compete at the 1988 Seoul Olympics the Bulgarian government had to agree to release his eligibility to Turkey. The Turks paid Bulgaria $1 million for his release.[6] At the Olympics, Süleymanoğlu did not disappoint, winning the featherweight gold medal. His performance was high enough to win the weight class above his.[8] He retired at the age of 22, after winning the world championship in 1989. However, he returned in 1991 before winning a second Olympic gold medal at Barcelona in 1992. Between the Olympiads, Süleymanoğlu continued to win world titles and set records.[citation needed]
The 1996 Olympic Games were to be his swan song and he retired after winning a third consecutive Olympic gold medal in Atlanta at the 1996 Olympic Games. That competition was noted for the rivalry between himself and Greece's Valerios Leonidis, with the arena divided into partisan Turkish and Greek crowds. At the end of the competition they were the very last competitors remaining as they traded three straight world-record lifts; Süleymanoğlu managed to raise 187.5 kg and then Leonidis failed in his attempt to lift 190 kg and burst into tears, to which he took the silver medal and was comforted by Süleymanoğlu. Announcer Lynn Jones proclaimed "You have just witnessed the greatest weightlifting competition in history," according to Ken Jones in the London Independent.[9][10][11][12]
Süleymanoğlu made another comeback in a late attempt to earn a fourth gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney but failed to lift 145 kg,[13] which would have been an Olympic record, and was eliminated from the competition. He was awarded the Olympic Order in 2001. In 2000 and 2004 he was elected member of the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame.[2]
At the 1999 general elections, he stood as an independent candidate to represent Bursa at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. In 2002 he was the candidate of the Nationalist Movement Party for the mayor of Kıraç municipality in Büyükçekmece district of Istanbul Province and represented the same party in general elections in 2006. He was unsuccessful in all these attempts.[citation needed]
He suffered from cirrhosis of the liver for a long time.[14] In 2009 he was in hospital for nearly three months.[15]
On 25 September 2017 he was admitted to a hospital due to the liver failure[14] On 6 October a liver transplantationwas made when a liver donor was found.[14] On 11 November he had surgery due to a hemorrhage in the brain and a subsequent edema. He died on 18 November 2017.[16]
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Naim Süleymanoğlu (born in Bulgaria as Naim Suleimanov but forced to change to Naum Shalamanov) (Bulgarian: from Наим Сюлейманов to Наум Шаламанов; 23 January 1967 – 18 November 2017) was a Turkish, World and Olympic Champion in weightlifting, who was nicknamed “The Pocket Hercules” because of his small stature of 1.47 m (4 ft 10 in). In the 1988 Summer Olympics, he set a record by lifting 190 kg in the clean and jerk.[1] He was awarded the Olympic Order in 2001. In 2000 and 2004, he was elected a member of the International Weightlifting FederationHall of Fame.[2]
Süleymanoğlu 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.[3] He is the only weightlifter to date to clean and jerk 10 kilos more than triple his bodyweight.[4] Süleymanoğlu set his first world record at age 16 but missed his first chance at Olympic success in 1984, when Bulgaria joined the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.[citation needed]
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