Optimum Sports : Istanbul

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Tuesday, 24 November 2015

Denizli in Galatasaray Comeback

Galatasaray have named Mustafa Denizli, the only coach to win the Turkish league title with three different clubs, as their manager.

Dursun Ozbek, the club’s chairman, made the announcement at a joint news conference after a meeting with Denizli at the club’s stadium in Istanbul.

“It’s a great honour to be here. A difficult and challenging task is waiting for me now,” said Denizli. “I am excited to be back with the only club for which I would risk my successes, my reputation.”

Denizli, 66, managed Turkey for four years and reached the quarter-finals of the European championship in 2000. He has won three domestic league titles with Istanbul’s three big rivals – Galatasaray, Fenerbahce and Besiktas. His previous spell in charge of Galatasaray was in the early 1990s.

Last week Galatasaray parted ways with Hamza Hamzaoglu, less than a year after he took charge of the side, following a mediocre start to the season. Galatasaray are seven points behind the league leaders, Besiktas, in third place after 12 games and third in Champions League Group C on four points from as many matches.

Denizli said he will not travel to Madrid for the team’s game against Atletico on Wednesday.

Monday, 5 August 2013

Terzi Takes Action in Turkey

The Turkish Athletics Federation has given two-year suspensions to 31 athletes for drug offences, including Olympic medallist Esref Apak.

Hammer thrower Apak, who won silver in Athens in 2004, was one of three athletes listed who competed at the 2012 London Olympics.

Turkey's doping problems threaten to affect Istanbul's bid to host the 2020 Olympics.

International Olympic Committee members will choose a winner on 7 September.

Worse could follow for the sport in Turkey when TAF completes its investigations into alleged doping by Asli Cakir Alptekin, thewomen's 1,500-metre gold medallist at the 2012 Olympics, and two other female team members in London last year.

The bans were expected after the International Association of Athletics Federations carried out tests before and during the Mediterranean Games in the Turkish city of Mersin in June.

Apak was one of eight athletes who tested positive following the European Team Championships in Gateshead the same month.

Last week, TAF chairman Mehmet Terzi resigned from the post he had held for nine years in the face of doping allegations directed at Turkish sportsmen and women.

"The athletes were found to be in violation of Turkey's strict anti-doping laws following testing undertaken by the Turkish anti-doping authority (TADA)," Ugur Erderner, president of Turkey's National Olympic Committee and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) executive board, said in a statement.

"This work is part of a concerted, and much more aggressive, anti-doping policy in Turkey that has been in place for over six months and will be further reinforced with the re-accreditation of the Wada-licensed anti-doping laboratory in Ankara later this year."

The TAF listed the names of the suspended athletes on its website, without giving details of their offences.