THE WORLD PORTAL

Slovenia was ranked 41st at the end of Summer Olympics 2008. They bagged five individual medals for this Olympics. They received 1 gold, 2 silver and 2 Bronze. This will be the best Olympics regarding the Olympic career of Slovenia. Considering last four Olympics, they have been top ranked from the past. The Slovenian flag was held by Urška Žolnir, he was the medal hope for Slovenia. He won bronze for last summer Olympics at Athens for Judo. Unluckily he was not able to  fulfill every Slovenians dream. Now lets check out the medalist from Slovenia.

1. Primoz Kozmus

Primoz is the only men who acquired gold for Slovenia. He is the one who raised the pride of his country by winning the first Gold for Slovenia in this summer Olympics 2008 for Hammer Throw. It was the first ever track and field medal in the entire history of Slovenia. This will be the first Olympic medal in his career. Primoz is from an athletic family. His sister Simona, is also a Slovenian record holder for hammer throw. His personal best was 82.30 meters and he covered that distance by 82.02 metres for this Summer Olympics which led a gold medal for Slovenia.

2.  Vasilij Zbojar

Vasilij Zbojar is the expert sailor who hails from Slovenia. His event is Laser -sailing and he won silver medal for this Olympics. This will be his consecutive second Olympic medal in his entire career. He received a bronze medal for the last Summer Olympics at Athens. That paved the way of receiving ‘Slovenian sportsman of the year 2004′. Right now his club is JK Burja Izola: Izola. He is working for customs and holds an economy degree.

3. Sara Isakovic

Sara is the best swimmer from Slovenia. She got silver for Womens 200m freestyle-swimming for this summer Olympics 2008. That was the first Olympic medal for Sara in her entire career. She spend her early life in Dubai and became interested in swimming. Later she was coached by Miha Potocinik. For this Olympics she set a new national record of 1:54.97, she finished behind Italian swimmer who set a new record of 1:54.82. She swam in a true style and was sixth at the first 50 m. When she completed 100m she was fourth and progressed her career best swimming after this distance to obtain the second place.

4. Rajmond  Debevec

Rajmond Debevec is the shooting champion from Slovenia. He received Bronze medal for Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions-shooting for this Summer Olympics 2008. He became a true inspiration for the upcoming talents from Slovenia. He has also received gold medal for 2000 Sydney Olympics breaking all the records.He considers that has his greatest achievement. He admits that that was the turning point in his career of shooting.

5. Lucija Polavder

Lucija is one of the medal hope in Judo from Slovenia. She didn’t discourage the people of Slovenia. She received Bronze for Judo in her 78Kg weight category for this summer Olympics 2008. Lucijas club is Judo Klub Sankaku, Slovenia. It was her first Olympic medal in her entire career. From her awards she has a majority of Bronze medals from the list. She sets her monopoly in most of the European championships in her class. She was the second Olympic medal winner for Slovenia for this summer Olympics 2008.

Turkey got 37th position in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They got 1 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze medals. They achieved a total of 8 medals. They participated in 12 events with 68 competitors. Mehmet Ozal was the flag bearer of the country in the opening ceremony of Olympics. Most of the Olympics medals of Turkey comes from wrestling. The country’s first Olympic champion was Greco-roman wrestler Yasar Erkan in the 61kg category at the 1936 Games in Berlin, Germany. Naim Süleymanoglu claimed gold in three consecutive Olympic Games from 1988 to 1996 in the featherweight category. In the 2004 Athens Olympics they got 3 gold medals and a total of 10 medals. In this summer Olympics they participated in wrestling, weightlifting, judo, sailing etc. The country got gold medal only for wrestling. The winners of 2008 Beijing Olympics are listed below.

1.Ramazan Sahin

Ramazan Sahin of Turkey won the gold medal for the 66Kg class wrestling in this summer Olympics at Beijing. He is a Turkish freestyle wrestler and a member of Istanbul-based club at Tekelspor. He was born in Makhachkala . He emigrated to Turkey in 2005 with the help of his uncle Ishak Irbayhanov, manager of the Turkey national freestyle wrestling team. The 25 old Sahin has been wrestling well in recent years, taking a bronze medal in the 2007 European Championship, a gold medal in the World championship the same year, and a bronze in the 2006 world championship. This is the first Turkey’s gold medal in wrestling in Beijing. He defeated Andriy Stadnik of Ukraine to become the men’s freestyle wrestling 66kg champion. The bronze medals went to Sushil Kumar of India and Otar Tushishvili of Georgia.

2.Sibel Ozkan

Sibel Ozkan of Turkey won the silver medal for the 48 Kg class women’s weightlifting in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was her first Olympics medal. She is a famous Turkish weightlifter born in 1988. She is 1.55m high and weighs 48kg. In the 2007 world weightlifting championships she finished fourth in the snatch event. She also participated in the 2007 and 2005 European championships. Chen Xiexia of china won the gold medal for this event in the Beijing. She defeated Chen Wei Ling of Chinese Taipei by lifting 199Kg weight. In this event each lifter performed in both the snatch and clean and jerk lifts, with the final score being the sum of the lifter’s best result in each.

3.Elvan Abeylegesse

Elvan Abeylegesse ,a Turkish athlete won two silver medals in this summer Olympics at Beijing. She won the silver medals for 5000m and 10000m. She held the record of 5000m at 14:24:68. She was born Hewan Abeye in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At the Athens Games in 2004, she finished 8th in the 1,500m in 4 minutes, 0.67 seconds, and 12th in the 5,000m in 15:12.64. In 1999 she started for the Ethiopian junior team at the IAAF World cross country championships and finished in the 9th position. To get Turkish citizenship she got married. Since then she divorced . Her international career began at the age of 18 in Italy in 2001 by winning the European 3000 m and 5000 m titles, setting a national record for Turkey. In 2002 she became a world leader with a time of 8:31:94 in the 3000m and in 2004 became the world’s top-ranked runner in the 1500m with a time of 3:58.38.

4.Azize Tanrikulu

A Turkish taekwondo athlete Azize Tanrikulu won the silver medal for the women’s 57 Kg class in the Beijing Olympics. She was born in Bismil, Diyarbakir, Turkey. Her brother Bahri Tanrikulu is also a Olympic silver medalist. She also won a silver medal in the 2006 Bangkok world cup for lightweight (59-63Kg). She again achieved a gold medal in the European championships for the same event. Lim Su-Jeong of South Korea won the gold medal for this event in Beijing. United States and Croatia won the bronze medal. Turky got two medals for the taekwondo. Lim Su-Jeong defeated Azize Tanrikulu by the score 1-0.

5.Nazmi Avluca

Nazmi Avluca a Turkish wrestler won the bronze medal for 84 Kg in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is a member of Konya Seker Spor Kueluebue in Turkey. Avluca beat Ma Sanyi of China 3 to 1 for the medal after losing to Hungarian Zoltan Fodor by the same margin, missing the chance to wrestle for gold. The 32 year old experienced wrestler Avluca, will have to end his career minus an Olympic gold. Now he won one Olympics medal. He won several World championships . He won the 1999 Athens world championships with a gold medal. He won 2008, 2004 and 1996 European championships with gold medals. He was born in the Central Anatolian town Kargi of Corum Province. He began early sport wrestling at the Wrestling Training center in Bolu in 1987. He won his first international gold in the 60 kg division at the 1992 World Cadets championships held in Istanbul. He was awarded by the International Federation of associated wrestling Styles “best wrestler of 2006 in Greco-Roman Style” .

6.Servet Tazegul

Servet Tazegul of Turkey won the bronze medal for the men’s 68Kg event in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is a Turkish taekwondo athlete born in Nuremberg, West Germany. He also won a gold medal in the 2008 European championships for featherweight.Servet Tazegul defeated Peter Lopez of Peru by the score 1-0. Son Tae-Jin of South Korea won the gold medal for this event in Beijing.Mark Lopez of United states got the silver.The taekwondo competition at the Olympic games consists of a single elimination tournament. Change has been made as the IOC decided to award two bronze medals in the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

7.Yakup Kilic

Yakup Kilic is a Turkish boxer won the bronze medal for the featherweight in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is member of Istanbul Fenerbahce Boxing Club. He participated at the 2005 Mediterranean Games in Almeria, Spain and won bronze medal. He also won a bronze medal in the world amateur championships in USA for the same event. He did so by beating Arash Usmanee of Canada by a slim one point margin 20-19. Vasyl Lomachenko of Ukraine won the gold medal for this event. In this summer Olympics he defeated Satoshi Shimizu of Japan by 12-9 and Abdelkader Chadi of Algeria by 13-6 on the way to semifinal.