Turkish junior world record-holder Viktoriya Gunes will swim five events at the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan this week.
Gunes had a massive 2015, exploding onto the world scene by winning a Junior World Championships gold in the 200 breaststroke and swimming a 2:19.64 that was faster than the entire final heat at the senior World Championships that same year. She made an Olympic bid for Turkey last summer, but regressed in that 200, going just 2:23.49 and not making it out of the semifinals. She also competed in the semifinals of the 100 breast and 400 IM.
In Baku this week, she’ll look to stake out a spot near the top of the world rankings, swimming the 50, 100 and 200 breaststrokes along with the 200 and 400 IMs. She’s the top seed in all of those events except the 50 breast, where her 32.30 is three tenths behind top seed Gulsen Beste Samanci.
The Islamic Solidarity Games are somewhat sparse on the psych sheets, with a number of events not even able to fill out a full heat of entries. But there are a few notable names competing along with Gunes. Syria’s Azad al-Barazi, a regular on the American pro swim series, will be competing. Algerian Olympian Oussama Sahnoune and Turkish record-holder Doga Celik will clash in the sprint freestyles. Indonesia’s I Gede Sudartawa looks to be the man to beat in the backstrokes. Turkey’s Ekaterina Avramova should be in line to win all three backstrokes on the women’s side.
Sad that she had to change her name . Bulgarian Ekaterina Abramova did not even tthough her keeping this reminds Turkey of the Ottoman failed push to Islamicise all of Bulgaria .
If Viktorya does not start winning , Erdogan will make her change her name to Fatimah & marry one of his henchmen .
Swimswam comments section should have a “report” button for posts like this.
You do know athletes have to change their names when they sell their sporting nationalities to Turkey & the other Gulf states . Anastasia Liukin dumbed it down to Nastia but we generally let them keep their personal identies .
Not stated in this article is if she has been made to convert to Islam . But you are ok with a minor being subjected to this even if Obama went to Turkey & told the world that Erdogan’s daughters are global role models .Bwahbwah!
Woah that time would have won gold in Rio, that has to be in the top 5 fastest ever swam
Yeah she’s been a little off her game since then. I could be wrong but I think she may originally be from Ukrain and fled after Russian insurgency. I think I heard that or I could be completely absolutely wrong.
Yes. She is from Ukraine and competes for Turkey since 2014. Here’s a swimswam article about her.
https://swimswam.com/ukranian-ex-pat-gunes-breaking-new-ground-for-turkey-with-first-3-world-golds/
Uberfan, the time of 2.19.64 is from 2015. Not from this week. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA-Yj2PlCLg
Thanks Bobo.
I know.