Çağla Baş Atakal (born Çağla Baş on July 26, 1992), aka Çağla Atakal, is a Turkish female paralympic shooter competing in the air rifle events. She qualified to represent Turkey at the

2016 Summer Paralympics The 2016 Summer Paralympics (), the 15th Summer Paralympic Games, were a major international multi-sport event for disabled sports, athletes with disabilities governed by the International Paralympic Committee, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, fro ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

. Baş also plays on a wheelchair basketball team at a national level.

Early life

Çağla Baş was born in Altınordu district of

Ordu Province Ordu Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey, located on the Black Sea coast. Its adjacent provinces are Samsun to the northwest, Tokat to the southwest, Sivas to the south, and Giresun to the east. Its license-plate code is 52. The capi ...

, Turkey on July 26, 1992. She lives in her hometown. She married Erdem Atakal in December 2014 after being together for 7 years. She drew the attention of her future husband during a wheelchair basketball game she was playing in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Sporting career

Baş began her sporting career at eleven of age by playing basketball. She is a member of the

wheelchair basketball Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing a non-disabled sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations (of ...

team of Altınordu Belediyespor in her hometown. Encouraged by her mother, she entered also

Paralympic shooting Paralympic shooting, also known as shooting Para sport, is an adaptation of shooting sports for competitors with disabilities. Shooting is a test of accuracy and control, in which competitors use pistols or rifles to fire a series of shots at a s ...

in 2008. She competes in the R2 40 shots 10m air rifle standing SH1 women's, R3 10m 60 shots air rifle prone SH1 mixed and FTR1 10m falling targets rifle SH1 mixed events. The SH1 classification is for Paralympic athletes, who can shoot without the need of a shooting stand to support the firearm. Her coach is Tolga Korkusuz. Baş became bronze medalist seven years in a row at national competitions. Representing her country, she took part at the IPC Shooting World Championships 2010 held in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

, Croatia and

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

Suhl Suhl () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located SW of Erfurt, NE of Würzburg and N of Nuremberg. With its 37,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella- ...

, Germany, at the IPC Shooting World Cup 2013 in Szczecin, Poland, 2015 in

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, Turkey, 2016 in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

, Thailand, and at the 2013 IPC Shooting European Championships in

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...

, Spain. She won a silver medal in the R2 SH1 event, and another silver medal in the FTR1 SH1 mixed event at the 2013 IPC Shooting World Cup in Poland, a bronze medal in the R3 SH1 mixed event at the 2015 World Cup in Turkey, a silver medal in the R2 SH1 event at the 2014 IPC Shooting World Championships. The success in 2014 brought her a quota place at the

2016 Rio Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

. This will be her first participation at the Paralympics.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bas, Caglal 1992 births Sportspeople from Ordu Turkish women's wheelchair basketball players Paralympic shooters for Turkey People with paraplegia Turkish female sport shooters Wheelchair category Paralympic competitors Shooters at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Living people