On Thursday 5 August at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, our athlete Eray Şamdan won our first-ever Olympic medal in karate when he secured silver in kumite -67 kg.
In athletics, Necati Er finished in 6th place in the triple jump finals with a jump of 17.25m while our 4x100m relay team was eliminated in the heats. In the 20km race walking, Salih Korkmaz was injured and could not finish the race, while Şahin Şenoduncu finished 34th with a time of 1:27:39, and Abdülselam İmuk finished 48th with a time of 1:32:27.
Our last Olympic Champion in wrestling, Taha Akgül, defeated Canada’s Amaarveer Dhesi 5-0 in his freestyle 125kg debut match but lost 8-0 to the USA’s Gable Dan Steveson in the quarter-finals. Our athlete will face Kyrgyz Aiaal Lazarev in repechage tomorrow, due to his opponent's progress to the final.
In karate, Eray Şamdan advanced to the semi-finals after finishing second in the kumite -67kg group stage. After defeating his Jordanian rival Abdel Rahman Almasatfa in the semi-finals, our athlete lost to France’s Steven da Costa in the final, winning the silver medal. It was the first Olympic medal in karate for Turkey, with the sport making its Olympic Games debut at Tokyo 2020. Serap Özçelik Arapoğlu was defeated in all three matches in the kumite -55kg group stage and could not reach the semi-finals. Katada Dilara Bozan finished third in Pool B and advanced to the bronze medal bout where she lost to Hong Kong’s Mo Sheung Grace Lau, finishing in fifth place.
In modern pentathlon, İlke Özyüksel completed the fencing ranking round with 184 points.