Taner Sağır (born 13 March 1985 in

Kardzhali Kardzhali ( , ''Kărdžali''; ), sometimes spelt Kardžali or Kurdzhali, is List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, a town in the Eastern Rhodopes in Bulgaria, centre of Kardzhali Municipality and Kardzhali Province. The noted Kardzhali Reservoir is ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

) is a Turkish world and

Olympic weightlifting Weightlifting (often known as Olympic weightlifting) is a competitive strength athletics, strength sport in which athletes compete in lifting a barbell loaded with weight plates from the ground to overhead, with the aim of successfully lifting t ...

champion. Coming into

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

as holder of all the junior world records at the age of only 19, he broke the Olympic records in the category –77 kg snatch,

clean and jerk The clean and jerk is a composite of two weightlifting movements, most often performed with a barbell: the clean and the jerk. During the ''clean'', the lifter moves the barbell from the floor to a racked position across the deltoids, without rest ...

and total. He is seen as a great talent by authorities.

Early years

He was born in Bulgaria to parents of Turkish ethnicity. In 1989, the family emigrated to Turkey where they settled first in the Batıkent neighborhood of Yenimahalle, Ankara before later moving to Pursaklar, Ankara. In 1994, Taner began weightlifting in Pursaklar. Taner Sağır is the younger brother of Olympic weightlifter Nezir Sağır.

Sports career

Sağır, 1.70 m tall, is a student of physical education and sports. Muharrem Süleymanoğlu and Osman Nuri Vural coach him at the Demirspor Club in

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

, Turkey. As he is somewhat baby-faced, he was in a few commercials at the Athens Olympics in 2004. He did not finish after three failures in the snatch event at the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

. He has not competed in a major event since 2008, owing to a spinal disc injury

Family life

On 30 August 2008 he married Sibel Güler, a two-time European taekwondo champion and a fellow immigrant from Bulgaria. The couple has a child. The family resides in Ankara on a street named after him.

Medals

Olympics World Championships European Championships *Y: Youth (under 16) *J: Junior *JWR: Junior World record

World rank

2004 World ranking list for the category "Men 77 kg" is as following:

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sagir, Taner 1985 births Living people Turkish male weightlifters Bulgarian Turks in Turkey Bulgarian emigrants to Turkey Olympic weightlifters for Turkey Olympic gold medalists for Turkey Weightlifters at the 2004 Summer Olympics Weightlifters at the 2008 Summer Olympics People from Kardzhali Sportspeople from Kardzhali Province Olympic medalists in weightlifting European champions in weightlifting Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics European champions for Turkey European Weightlifting Championships medalists World Weightlifting Championships medalists 21st-century Turkish sportsmen