One of the two newest oil drilling rigs in Turkiye has been named after Bulgarian-Turkish weightlifter and Olympic champion Naim Suleymanoglu, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar posted on the NSosyal social network, the Bulgarian news agency BTA reports. “Naim Suleymanoglu is a man of records and a symbol of local strength,” Alparslan Bayraktar wrote. The two rigs are part of Turkiye’s strategy for producing its own energy while developing and using its own infrastructure for the purpose.

Naim Suleymanoglu (Suleymanov) is a Bulgarian and Turkish weightlifter of ethnic Turkish origin born on 23 January, 1967 in Ptichar village near Momchilgrad in Bulgaria, who went on to become world and European champion for Bulgaria. From Naim Suleymanov, his name was changed to Naum Shalamanov in 1985 during what was called the “revival process” (the forced assimilation campaign during communism during which people of Turkish origin were forced to change their names and adopt Bulgarian ones - ed), after which he fled to Turkiye in December 1986 during the World Cup in Melbourne. In Turkiye he was welcomed as a national hero, and went on to win a total of 3 Olympic titles, as well as a world and a European gold medal for Turkiye, setting dozens of world records. When he retired he was described as the greatest weightlifter of all time. He died in 2017.

Edited by Miglena Ivanova
Translated and posted by Milena Daynova
Photo: BNR, archive