By Emre Asikci
ANKARA (AA) – Former grease wrestler, Suleyman Atli, will chase an Olympic dream on the wrestling mat for Turkey at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
As a child, Atli would watch the grease wrestling festival in southwestern Aydin province. Watching contestants has been a source of inspiration for Atli to start modern wrestling.
He started the sports with oil wrestling at an early age and two years later switched to the wrestling mat. "During my childhood days, I used to watch an oil wrestling festival with my family and used to see my peers who wrestling there,” he said.
The 25-year-old athlete stressed he hoped to compete in the Tokyo Olympics with a championship title but it was not meant to be after he lost to Russian Zaur Uguev in the final of the 2019 World Wrestling Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
He found solace by getting a quota a year ago for the Olympics and Atli wants to take home gold in Tokyo.
Atli said work discipline is of the crucial importance of these branches when asked about his training program.
"Work discipline is notable for most individual branches. Moreover, attention should be paid to resting, training method and social life because when you make something incomplete it is not to possible compensate," he said.
"It essential to be passionate and self-sacrifice while preparing for World Championships and Olympic Games. In the last 20 days before the contests, we have several training sessions, where we face heavy workloads and specific ones to boost condition, speed and improve wresting skills. These pieces of training keep us in shape."
– Turkish athletes have good opportunities to improve
Atli said the sponsorship is the essential factor for success and sports authorities in Turkey enable athletes to notch up success.
"The sponsorship is the crucial importance of wrestling like other sports branches but the Turkish Wrestling Federation covers a good part of our expenses, but sadly, sponsorship is not in the foreground compared to other countries."
The Turkish Olympian also said that he took part in the Rio Games in 2016 but had to say goodbye early due to a lack of experience and getting strung up on the game.
He promised himself to be successful in his career and has he sights on clinching a gold medal in Tokyo 2020.
– Atli believes the wrestling team will live up to Turkish people's expectations
He said the Turkish wrestling team will show it is a leading branch of the Turkish.
"As a national wrestling team, we are aware of the expectations of us. I hope that 2020 will be our year,", he said.
The Olympian said that, first and foremost, he advised all young people to do sports because the sport is something that should be in everyone's life.
The 2020 Games in Tokyo will be the second Olympic experience for Atli. He was eliminated early after Romania's Ivan Guidea defeated him in the second round in 2016.
The Tokyo Olympics will run from July 24 to Aug. 9.
