Cengizhan Şimşek Claims Başpehlivan Title at 661st Kırkpınar

Over the week­end, a sold-out crowd wit­nessed Turkish wrestler Cengizhan Şimşek claim his first-ever vic­tory in the 661^stKırkpınar olive oil wrestling cham­pi­onship, becom­ing one of the youngest-ever cham­pi­ons.

Şimşek defeated com­pa­triot Mustafa Taş in over­time to claim the title of başpehli­van – chief wrestler – and the competition’s pres­ti­gious golden belt and prize money.

“My dream has come true,” Şimşek told local media. ​“When you work hard, God rewards your efforts.”

On his way to the final, the 26-year-old defeated some of the tour­na­ment favorites, includ­ing two-time cham­pion Orhan Okul, 2017 cham­pion İsmail Balaban, Menderes Saltık and Tanju Gemici. Taş faced a sim­i­larly chal­leng­ing run to the final.

Local media reported that both wrestlers were greeted enthu­si­as­ti­cally by the audi­ence and responded by per­form­ing a tra­di­tional chore­o­graphed pre-match rou­tine known as a peşrev.

Considered under­dogs at the start of the com­pe­ti­tion, both wrestlers began the final round cau­tiously, and after 40 min­utes, nei­ther one was able to get the best of the other.

Once time expired, the match went into over­time, where each wrestler earned points for dif­fer­ent tech­ni­cal moves. Finally, in the 59^th minute, Şimşek caught Taş off-guard to win the match.

Şimşek ded­i­cated the vic­tory to his par­ents from the coastal city of Antalya, home to sev­eral other cham­pi­ons in the past decade.

“This year, our young wrestlers took Edirne by storm,” Recep Gürkan, the city’s mayor, wrote on Facebook. ​“I con­grat­u­late both of our wrestlers who have writ­ten their names in his­tory with golden let­ters and wish them suc­cess.”

A record-high 2,475 wrestlers flocked to Edirne in north­west­ern Turkey to com­pete, where shirt­less ath­letes wear­ing the tra­di­tional leather pants known as kıspet cover them­selves in olive oil and grap­ple with their oppo­nents on a grass field until one of them is knocked onto his back. Over three days, wrestlers fight in pairs until only one is left stand­ing.

An esti­mated two tons of olive oil are used dur­ing the event. Wrestlers douse them­selves in olive oil to make it more dif­fi­cult for their oppo­nents to get a firm grip on them. Some also claim that apply­ing fresh oil between fights helps soothe their injuries.

This year’s event gar­nered par­tic­u­lar inter­est from the Turkish pub­lic. Defending cham­pion Ali Gürbüz was com­pet­ing to win his third con­sec­u­tive title, which would have made him an eter­nal holder of the golden belt. However, he fell short, los­ing to 2016 run­ner-up Mehmet Yeşil early on.

Organizers also lifted audi­ence restric­tions imposed to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pan­demic, which was par­tially attrib­uted to the uptick in atten­dance.

While many felt that this year’s edi­tion of Kırkpınar would be a return to nor­mal­ity, the event fea­tured plenty of drama.

Away from the mul­ti­ple upsets caused by the two final­ists, tem­pers flared early on when the ref­er­ees elim­i­nated the 2005 cham­pion and 2018 and 2019 run­ner-up Şaban Yılmaz for foul play. The enraged for­mer cham­pion stormed into the ref­eree box and had to be calmed down and removed by local police.

Kırkpınar is widely thought to be the world’s old­est sport­ing event and was rec­og­nized in 2010 on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Its ori­gins date back to 1357 when a group of Ottoman sol­diers stopped near present-day Edirne.

To pass the time, 40 sol­diers decided to wres­tle in pairs. After the rest had stopped, the last two wres­tled into the night and were found dead the next morn­ing.

There was no win­ner, but the event has been held annu­ally since then, except in 2020 when Kırkpınar was can­celed in response to the rapid spread of Covid-19 in Turkey.

“I heartily con­grat­u­late all our wrestlers who sweat in the hal­lowed field,” Gürkan said. ​“I hope to meet you all at the 662^nd Kırkpınar in 2023 on the 100^th anniver­sary of our repub­lic.”

This is a break­ing news arti­cle. Check back for updates.

• Hurriyet Daily News
• TRT World
• Daily Sabah