Sport in Turkey

Turkey hosted the Finals of EuroBasket 2001 and the 2010 FIBA World Cup the men's national team finishing second in both events.

[2] In the following years, Beşiktaş have come out as the winners of the FIBA EuroChallenge in the 2011–12 season with only a single defeat, all stages of the tournament included.

[5] Turkish basketball players such as Mehmet Okur, Hedo Türkoğlu and Ersan İlyasova have also been successful in the NBA.

Active Turkish NBA players include Cedi Osman, Furkan Korkmaz, Enes Kanter, and Ersan Ilyasova.

Women's volleyball teams, namely Fenerbahçe, Eczacıbaşı and VakıfBank, have won numerous European championship titles and medals.

The traditional Turkish national sport has been the oil wrestling ("Yağlı güreş") since Ottoman times.

In recent years, Turkey has exported many of its players into top foreign teams, including Internazionale, FC Barcelona, Parma, Milan, and Bayern Munich, among others.

World class players such as Radomir Antić, Toni Schumacher, Gheorghe Hagi, Giga Popescu, Cláudio Taffarel, Mário Jardel, Óscar Córdoba, Frank de Boer, Pierre van Hooijdonk, John Carew, Alex, Franck Ribéry, Nicolas Anelka, Mateja Kežman, Roberto Carlos, Milan Baroš, Harry Kewell, Dani Güiza, Giovani dos Santos, Guti, Quaresma, Hugo Almeida, Dirk Kuyt, Didier Drogba, Wesley Sneijder, Robin van Persie, Mario Gómez and many more have played at some point or continue to play in Turkey.

Several Turkish nationals, including Ersan İlyasova, Hedo Türkoğlu, Mehmet Okur, Semih Erden, Ömer Aşık, and Enes Kanter, have played in the prestigious National Basketball Association, generally considered the world's top basketball league.

Turkey's greatest success in international basketball came when it hosted the 2010 FIBA World Cup, finishing second behind the USA.

Turkey also advanced to the quarter-finals in the 2006 FIBA World Cup, achieving a non-expected sixth place.

Nevin Yanıt won first European Championship in a sprint race for Turkey by winning gold in Women's 100 metres hurdles.

In 2017, Ramil Guliyev of Fenerbahçe won Turkey's first ever gold medal in the men's 200 metre race at the 2017 World Championships, being the second white athlete in history to achieve this feat.

[14] Other important annual motorsports events which are held at the Istanbul Park racing circuit include the MotoGP Grand Prix of Turkey, the FIA World Touring Car Championship, the GP2 Series and the Le Mans Series.

The track located at Istanbul has a seating capacity of 155,000 people (biggest in Europe), is just over 5,340 m long and runs anti-clockwise.

Weightlifting has been another successful sport for Turkey, regularly relied upon to provide gold medals in the Olympics.

The bays around Çeşme, Alaçatı, Bodrum, and Datça peninsulas as well as Antalya have wind conditions for windsurfing.

Interior view of the Atatürk Olympic Stadium . With its 76,761 ( all-seater ) capacity and Olympic size, it was granted the "5-star sports complex" title by the UEFA in 2004, enabling it to host the finals of UEFA events.
Turkey won the silver medal at the 2010 FIBA World Championship .
VakıfBank S.K. are currently one of the best women's volleyball teams in the world, having won the FIVB Volleyball Women's Club World Championship a record four times and the European Champions League six times to date.
Fenerbahçe 's Ramil Guliyev won gold in the men's 200 metre race for Turkey in the 2017 World Championships in Athletics .
Paragliding in Fethiye