ट्रिविया

He won three straight Olympic gold medals in weightlifting for Turkey between 1988 and 1996. He also won seven world and six European championships. At 4' 10" tall and about 135 pounds, he could lift three times his weight.

He was born to an ethnic Turkish family in Bulgaria, and defected to Turkey in 1986. He was an outspoken critic of the Bulgarian government's treatment of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria.