Nonswimmer sailing athlete bags gold medal
Süleyman Arat- ISTANBUL
A girl who was chosen as a sailing candidate when she was only 8 years old and did not even know how to swim has brought Türkiye the world championship at the age of 15 in the optimist branch.
Medine Havva Tatlıcan became the first sailing athlete who won the first gold medal for the country in the optimist class of the championship, where a total of 240 athletes from 48 countries competed.
“I did not know how to swim yet, but there were 15 other children who didn’t know how to swim as well. While working on the open sea, I was relying on the life jacket on my back, seeing the children on other boats and overcoming my fear,” said Tatlıcan while expressing her success story.
Tatlıcan noted that the most challenging aspect of the sailing sport is not only the fear of not knowing how to swim but also the fact that she feels cold during training in winter.
“The main difficulty was to be frozen to the bone during the winter months. We were sailing at 11 a.m. and returning at 7 p.m.,” she explained.
“I was so cold that I cannot even describe it to you. I thought about quitting sports many times as I was cold, but the degrees I achieved in the small competitions motivated me.”
The young athlete, who also told the story of starting sailing, wrote her name “just for fun” on the list of a teacher looking for students to give free sailing lessons.
Even if she started sailing by such a coincidence, she made a great effort to become a good athlete and overcome her fears about the sea, she added.
“At first, as I was afraid of the sea, my coach used to make me sleep on the boat at sea. Later it turned out that I got used to the sea and learned many things by hearing in my sleep,” Tatlıcan explained.
Showing her first significant success at the 2021 European Championship as she ranked in the races between the ages of 11-15 in the Turkish championships, she said, “I missed the championship there by three points and became the second in Europe.”
Noting that the World Championship held in Bodrum was her most important goal, Tatlıcan stated she is pleased with her success.
