Naturalized citizens from seven countries are contributing to Türkiye's sports programs across nine disciplines, serving as players and coaches on various national teams.
In football, Brazilian-born Marco Aurelio, now known as Mehmet Aurelio after acquiring Turkish citizenship, was called up by national team coach Fatih Terim and appeared in a recent match against Luxembourg. In athletics, Ethiopian-born Elvan Abeylegesse, who came to Türkiye through ENKA Club in 1999, set a world record in the 5,000 meters at Bergen, Norway in 2004, clocking 14:24:68 under the name Elvan Can.
The national archery team includes two foreign-born women. Georgian-born Natalia Nasaridze, who sought asylum in Türkiye in 1991, set an Olympic record at the 1996 Atlanta Games, won a Mediterranean Games gold medal, and broke a world record at an indoor competition in Britain in 1995. Ukrainian-born Derya Sarialtin Bard also competes for Türkiye in archery.
Russian-born Natalia Hanikoglu has played on the national women's volleyball team for six years, while former Azerbaijani nationals Olesia Coskun and Nergis Turkay represent Türkiye in women's handball. Chinese-born Pengfei Jiang, 17, who has lived in Türkiye since age nine, won the European junior table tennis championship in 2004.
On the coaching side, naturalized citizen Adem Bereket, a Daghestan-born former Russian national who earned a bronze medal in freestyle wrestling at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, now heads the national freestyle wrestling program. Former Romanian national Mihai Iliescu coaches Türkiye's national tennis team.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in October 2006, in its own words.