DELIZIA FLACCAVENTO
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News
Born with a condition preventing the development of his lower limbs, Uğur Yumuk, 22, has become one of Turkey’s best disabled swimmers since he started competing in 2004.
When he was a child, Yumuk’s father used to take him to the public swimming pool in their hometown in the southeastern province of Siirt. It was there that a professional coach approached the pair and offered to train the young swimmer.
Today, after winning two gold medals at the Turkish Swimming Championships for the Disabled, Yumuk lives and trains in Istanbul, where he is sponsored by Işık Okulları (Light Schools) and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“I have good sponsors at the moment, but I don’t know what the future holds, especially if I don’t manage to qualify for the London Paralympics [in 2012],” Yumuk said. “Life in Turkey is difficult for people with disabilities – everything is left to the efforts of a few committed individuals.”
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In 2006, Yumuk won the gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke competition at the Turkish Swimming Championships for the Disabled held in the Central Anatolian province of Konya, attracting the attention of Osman Çullu, coach of the Turkish National Disabled Swimming Team.
With Çullu’s help, Yumuk obtained sponsorship from the Turkish Handicapped Sports, Education and Assistance Foundation, or TESYEV, which paid for him to have his legs amputated and replaced with prosthetic limbs that increased his mobility. Following the surgery, Yumuk can swim more easily and walk around without assistance.
In 2008, Yumuk again won a gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke event at the Turkish Swimming Championships for the Disabled, held that year in the Black Sea province of Trabzon. He was forced to quit swimming the following year, however, when the public pool where he trained in Siirt was closed.
But Yumuk’s athletic career was not over. When he came to Istanbul to shoot a promotional video for the Turkish National Paralympics Committee, he met Akif Sözeri, a swimming coach and physical education teacher at Işık Okulları in Erenköy, who helped him secure his current sponsors and move to Istanbul in early 2010.
Işık Okülları supports Yumuk by employing him full-time at the swimming pool at its Erenköy campus, where he trains every day with Sözeri. PricewaterhouseCoopers pays his rent and helps him buy training equipment and keep his prosthetic legs in good condition.
Both sponsorships will end in summer 2012.
Winning a medal at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London would secure his future, Yumuk said. Disabled swimmers are categorized in the games according to the type and severity of their disability. In Yumuk’s category, the minimum qualifying time for the 100-meter backstroke event is one minute and 23 seconds. So far, his best time is one minute and 30 seconds.
Improving his time by seven seconds over the next 18 months will be difficult, but not impossible, Yumuk said.
At the 2010 Turkish Swimming Championships for the Disabled, held in Kahramanmaraş in September, Yumuk won the silver medal with a time of 1:38. But whatever happens with his bid to join the London games, swimming has already given Yumuk the mobility to live and work independently and away from home – something he knows makes him lucky.
Disability directly affects 8 million people in Turkey, most of whom are relegated to their homes. Despite his own success, Yumuk has not forgotten the plight of other handicapped people in the country.
“I don’t think about myself, I think about those who will come after me,” he said. “Joining the 2012 Paralympic Games would be a great victory for the disabled sports movement here in Turkey. It would be a chance to bring disabilities in Turkey to light and create more opportunities for people like me, who can give so much to society and yet are too often left behind.”