Kırkpınar Governor Calls for Cancellation of This Year’s Event

The gov­er­nor of Turkey’s his­toric Kırkpınar olive oil wrestling tour­na­ment has said that he believes the com­pe­ti­tion should be can­celed this year.

The 659^th edi­tion of the cen­turies-old event was orig­i­nally sched­uled to take place in the first two weeks of July, but was delayed until September as a result of the Covid-19 pan­demic.

Now, Seyfettin Selim argues that the integrity of the com­pe­ti­tion has been com­pro­mised and the world’s old­est sport­ing event should there­fore not go ahead.

This puts Selim at odds with the pres­i­dent of Turkey’s wrestling fed­er­a­tion, Musa Aydın, who is con­tin­u­ing to work with the country’s min­istry of health to decide how best to orga­nize the event.

Aydın orig­i­nally planned to hold this year’s Kırkpınar inside of a so-called bub­ble, where the wrestlers would stay (pend­ing a neg­a­tive test) until their elim­i­na­tion. No fans would be per­mit­ted to watch the event.

“The pres­i­dent of the fed­er­a­tion is try­ing, but at this time there will be no wrestling wor­thy of Kırkpınar,” Selim said. ​“The wrestlers can­not make prepa­ra­tions. There are nutri­tional pat­terns. They diet start­ing from December until June. They con­stantly improve them­selves.”

“It’s obvi­ous why I don’t want it. Most of the wrestlers quit train­ing. If there are 50 head wrestlers, seven to eight of them are train­ing,” he added. ​“We can­not find a real wrestler in Kırkpınar. I am against Kırkpınar this year, as agha, I will not do it.”

As agha of Kırkpınar, Selim, who is also a wealthy busi­ness­man and phil­an­thropist, pro­vides fund­ing for the event and awards the başpehli­van – the win­ner of the com­pe­ti­tion.

He claims that with­out his pres­ence, the event can­not go for­ward. Olive Oil Times was unable to ver­ify this claim.

“The pan­demic process did not pass as we expected. Cases are increas­ing,” Selim said. According to fig­ures from the Turkish gov­ern­ment, there are nearly 15,000 active Covid-19 cases in Turkey and slightly more than 6,000 peo­ple have died from the dis­ease so far.

“If the fed­er­a­tion decides to hold Kırkpınar, I will not go, but they can­not do it despite me,” he added. ​“Even if it is done, I will not go.”

• Kocaeli
• Turkish Presidency Directorate of Communication