Sports
Several important international sports events have been held in İzmir:
- 28 August – 2 September 2010 – Group D of the 2010 FIBA World Championship,
- 3–13 September 2009 – Groups A, C, E, Semifinals & Final of the 2009 Men's European Volleyball Championship
- 1971 – The Mediterranean Games,
- 7–22 August 2005 – The 2005 Summer Universiade, the International University Sports Games,
- 2–7 September 2005 – Preliminary games of the 2005 European Women's Basketball Championship,
- 4–9 July 2006 – The 2006 European Seniors Fencing Championship,
- 14–23 July 2006 – The U20 European Basketball Championship for Men,
- 7–11 May 2008 – The 7th WTF World Junior Taekwondo Championship.
Notable football clubs in İzmir include: Altay, Bucaspor, Altınordu, Göztepe, İzmirspor and Karşıyaka. Recently, Bucaspor have relegated from the top tier, Turkish Super League by the end of 2010-11 season. Göztepe made sports history in Turkey by having played the semi finals of the UEFA Cup in the 1968–1969 season, and the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in the 1969–1970 season; becoming the first ever Turkish football club to play a semi-final game in Europe and the only one for two decades. Altay and Göztepe have won the Turkish Cup twice for İzmir and all of İzmir's teams periodically jumped in and out of Süper Lig. Historically, İzmir is also the birthplace of two Greek sports clubs, namely the multi-sport Panionios and association football Apollon Smyrni F.C. which were founded in the city and moved to Athens after 1922.
Karşıyaka SK's basketball branch Pınar Karşıyaka won the Turkish Basketball Championship title and Presidential Cup in 1987.
The 50,000 capacity İzmir Atatürk Stadium regularly hosts, apart from Turkish Super League games of İzmir-based teams, many other Super League and Turkish Cup derby matches.
The city boasts of several sports legends, past and present. Already at the dawn of its history, notable natives such as the son of its first port's founder Pelops had attained fame and kingdom with a chariot race and Onomastus is one of history's first recorded sportspeople, having won the boxing contest in the Olympiad of 688 BC.
Born in İzmir, and nicknamed Taçsız Kral (The Uncrowned King), 1960s football star Metin Oktay is a legend in Turkey. Oktay became the first notable Turkish footballer to play abroad, with Palermo in Italy's Serie A, during the 1961–1962 season. Two other notable football figures from İzmir are Alpay Özalan and Mustafa Denizli, the first having played for Aston Villa F.C. between 2000–2003 and the second, after a long playing career as the captain of İzmir's Altay S.K., still pursues a successful career as a coach, being the only manager in Turkish Super League history to win a championship title with each of Istanbul's "Big Three" clubs (Galatasaray S.K., Fenerbahçe S.K. and Beşiktaş J.K.) and having managed the Turkish national football team to the UEFA Euro 2000 Quarter Finals.
İzmir Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) Sports Club's ice hockey team began playing in the Turkish Ice Hockey Super League during the 2011–2012 season.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“It was so hard to pry this door open, and if I mess up I know the people behind me are going to have it that much harder. Because then there’s living proof. They can sit around and say, “See? It doesn’t work.” I don’t want to be their living proof.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)