Here is a fairly recent interview with Naim Suleymanoglu.
I hope some of you can help with the translation of the main points.
Translation:
Thanks to Şamil.
He was born on January 23, 1967 in Ahatlı village. Two years after his family moved to Mestanlı. In childhood, he was interested in football, wrestling and swimming.
When he was 10 years old his coach discovered him in swimming pool. Same year he moved to Kardzhali for study in high school sports.
In 1981 he was selected to Bulgarian junior team. One year later, he participated his first international competition in Sao Paulo (Junior World Championships) and came first. With this result, he started his career with a gold medal.
[08:25 – 09:32]
He talked about popularity of weightlifting in Bulgaria, effects of weightlifting in social life. (Nothing interesting)
He escaped from Bulgaria in December 1986 and changed his nationality. After this situation, he was banned from weightlifting for a year.
Turgut Özal (Prime Minister of Turkey) gave more than a million dollar to Bulgarian Federation and lifted the ban. His first competition for Turkey is the European Championships in England. He took 3 gold medals with a snatch world record. In the Olympics, he won the gold medal with with 6 world and 9 Olympic records, .
After Olympics, he thought of quitting weightlifting because he accomplished his goals but Prime Minister Turgut Özal changed his desicion.
I can’t wait! 😀
Me too! I hope there are some takers for this.
Looks like he’s not cutting for the 62’s right now…
Looking forward to the translation 😀
Will see if my dad understand Naim Turkish. He speaks Bulgarian Turkish who are a bit different from the standard Turkish . I do not really understand due to his dialect, but hopefully we can arrange a reasonably accurate translation. 🙂
That would be great!
hey guys, im turkish and watched this (not entirely but fast forwarding minute by minute) he is generally talks about how he escaped bulgaria, political things, and his family life etc. nothing training wise
Still interesting.
He was born on January 23, 1967 in Ahatlı village. Two years after his family moved to Mestanlı. In childhood, he interested in football, wrestling and swimming. When he was 10 years old his coach discoreved him in swimming pool. Same year he moved to Kardzhali for study in high school sports. In 1981 he was selected to Bulgarian junior team. One year later, he participated his first international competition in Sao Paulo (Junior World Championships) and came first. With this result, he started his career with a gold medal.
[08:25 – 09:32]
He talked about popularity of weightlifting in Bulgaria, effects of weightlifting in social life. (Nothing interested)
He escaped from Bulgaria in December 1986 and changed his nationality. After this situation, he banned from weightlifting for a year. Turgut Özal (Prime Minister of Turkey) gave more than a million dollar to Bulgarian Federation and lifted the ban. His first competition for Turkey is the European Championships in England. He took 3 gold medals with a snatch world record. In Olympics, with 6 world and 9 olympic records, he won the gold medal.
After Olympics, he thought of quitting weightlifting because he accomplished his goals but Prime Minister Turgut Özal changed his desicion.
….
I’ll finish the translation. If there is an error, I apologize for my grammar.
Thank you! Looking forward to what the legend has to say.