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Ali Gürbüz has defeated last year’s cham­pion, Orhan Okulu, in the final match of the 658^th Kırkpınar olive oil wrestling cham­pi­onship.

Gürbüz claimed the title of başpehli­van — or head wrestler — in front of record-break­ing crowds in the north­west­ern Turkish city of Erdine. He takes home a prize of 51,000 Turkish lira ($9,060) and has redeemed him­self in the eyes of many commentators.

After win­ning back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012, Gürbüz was famously dis­qual­i­fied from the 2013 semi-final after test­ing pos­i­tive for banned sub­stances. He also made it to last year’s semi-final, where he was defeated by Şaban Yılmaz, the 2005 champion.

In order to claim his third title, Gürbüz defeated Hamza Köseoğlu in his semi-final match, while two-time for­mer cham­pion Okulu defeated Mehmet Yeşil, the run­ner-up in 2016, in his semi-final bout.

Gürbüz and Okulu had met twice before at Kırkpınar, with each wrestler hav­ing pre­vi­ously won one match against the other.

This year’s edi­tion of Kırkpınar broke last year’s record for the num­ber of wrestlers par­tic­i­pat­ing, as 2,380 Turks from across the coun­try grap­pled on grassy fields over the course of the week. Gürbüz’s vic­tory came in front of the largest live and tele­vi­sion audi­ence that the event has also ever seen, accord­ing to the Anadolu news agency.

Kırkpınar is widely con­sid­ered to be the old­est sport­ing event in the world, dat­ing back to the mid-four­teenth cen­tury, and was rec­og­nized in 2010 as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage event.

According to leg­end, the first edi­tion of the event took place in 1357 when a group of Ottoman sol­diers stopped near Erdine. While they were wait­ing near the for­mer cap­i­tal of the Ottoman Empire, 40 of the sol­diers began wrestling to pass the time. After the rest had fin­ished, the final two con­tin­ued fight­ing into the night and both were found dead the next morning.

There was no win­ner that year, but since then the event has been held annu­ally with par­tic­i­pants wrestling in pairs for a week until only one man is left standing.

“Oil wrestling unites peo­ple across our coun­try, and I’m proud of being part of this ancient tour­na­ment that has been going on for cen­turies,” Ali Gökçen, a 25-year vet­eran of Kırkpınar, told Anadolu news agency. ​“It reflects our culture.”

Kırkpınar wrestlers wear only a kıspet — the short, leather pants after which the event is named — and grap­ple with one another while cov­ered in olive oil. It is esti­mated that about two tons of olive oil is used each year dur­ing the event.

The match begins with both com­bat­ants lock­ing their hands together and keep­ing their heads close. In order to win, one of the fight­ers must knock his oppo­nent onto his back and pin him or lift him into the air. If this does not occur within 40 min­utes then the ref­eree calls time and awards a golden point to the wrestler he believed to be superior.

The olive oil makes it very dif­fi­cult for the wrestlers to get a grip on one another, so they are allowed to grab the pock­ets of the opponent’s kıspet. Wrestlers also say that olive oil reduces the pain caused by injuries and helps their wounds to heal more quickly.

Kırkpınar has always been pop­u­lar in Turkey, attract­ing thou­sands of spec­ta­tors each year, and is becom­ing increas­ingly pop­u­lar with for­eign tourists vis­it­ing the north­west­ern city as well.

“Lots of tourists come to see Edirne’s cul­tural and his­tor­i­cal sites,” Mustafa Kabak, a local hotel employee, told Anadolu news agency. ​“But when the fes­ti­val kicks off, it’s a whole dif­fer­ent story, as an incred­i­ble num­ber of tourists arrive in the region.”

“The demand is so high dur­ing the Kırkpınar fes­ti­val that it’s almost impos­si­ble to find a sin­gle vacant room,” he added. ​“In fact, there are local res­i­dents who leave the city and rent out their houses to tourists.”

Among the for­eign nation­als who have been spot­ted at this year’s edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion were Japanese, Bulgarian, Russian, and British tourists. Roughly 3.8 mil­lion vis­i­tors come to Erdine each year, with many com­ing specif­i­cally for Kırkpınar.

“Honoring the coun­try’s old tra­di­tion is truly beau­ti­ful,” Mariana, a local baker, told Anadolu news agency. ​“In addi­tion to the spir­i­tual sat­is­fac­tion, we also reap the ben­e­fits by earn­ing more and serv­ing more.”

• Daily Sabah


• Anadolu news agency 


• Hurriyet Daily News