Turkish Archery in Republic Period
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Atatürk had been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, and after watching a display by the country's first woman archer Betül Diker (Or) at the 19 May celebrations that year, had asked Halim Baki Kunter to train her himself. |
After the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, a handful of archers tried to keep the sport alive, encouraging young people to join them and holding practice sessions in various districts as Istanbul. Ibrahim and Bekir Özok - descendants of the legendary Turkish archer Tozkoparan, Vakkas Okatan - grandson of Mustafa Kani, writer of the first book on Turkish archery during the reign of Mahmut II, Prof Necmettin Okyay - who again came a family of archers, Hafiz Kemal Gürses, and Baki Kunter - chairman of the National Sports Federation, founded an archery club in 1937 with the object of reviving this national sport. Atatürk had been an enthusiastic supporter of the project, and after watching a display by the country's first woman archer Betül Diker (Or) at the 19 May celebrations that year, had asked Halim Baki Kunter to train her himself. However, after Atatürk's death in 1938 the club found it without resources and closed down. Archery in Turkey nearly died out completely over the next 15 years, until Fazil Özak son of former archer Bahir Özok, approached President Celal Bayar in 1953 about official recognition for the sport by the Directorate of Physical Training, and the sport was attached to the Federation of Marksmanship. The first president of “Federation of Turkish Archery” was Fazil Özak and after him comes Lütfullah Kayalar who was the second president of Turkish Archery Federation but these two former presidents –Fazil Özak and Lütfullah Kayalar- died. The last president who is now in Hacettepe University and alive is Ugur Erdener |
For the first time, in 1900, archery was accepted as an Olympic sport. In 1931,” International Archery Federation (FITA)” was established and in 1955 , Turkey became the 16th member of the “International Archery Federation”, which today has 121 members altogether. After archery was organized as a separate federation in 1961 , Turkish archers began to participate for the first time in international competitions, although unfortunately with little success due to financial and organizational difficulties. But today the sport is thriving, and from just 35 licensed archers on 1 January 1982 the number has grown to nearly three thousand. What is more ,the quality of their performance has risen rapidly. For the last 4-5 years, the archers are tried to be provided with all the best opportunities and the lack of technical trainers are closed by the lessons which are held both in our country and in other countries. With lots of rapid and good developments in archery and thanks to the programs, which are done to improve archery, Turkey, that did not have any licensed referees 5 years ago, has 3 international referees today.
THE FIVE YEAR PLAN in 1990
In the VI. Plan period , archery is planned to be organized in 25-26 provinces and this number will increase to 20. These provinces are: Ankara, Istanbul ,Izmir ,Antalya, Samsun, Edirne, Sakarya, Bolu, Balikesir, Denizli, Afyon, Eskisehir, Erzurum, Trabzon, Mersin, Kastamonu, Konya, Isparta, Mugla, Aydin. By the year 1988 ,Turkey has 5 trainers and two of them are the trainers of Turkish Archery Team. In order to train talented and good trainers ,some lessons are thought to be put into practice at least twice a year. By this way, the number of trainers are planned to reach 250. In addition to these, 100 physical education teachers will be trained in accordance with the procedures of archery two days each week in the selected districts.