Curling has its roots in 16th century Scotland, but in Turkey, the sport’s history dates back just 11 years.
Oznur Polat was there in her hometown of Erzurum, Turkey on Jan. 26, 2011, the day curling was introduced to her country at the Winter Universiade multi-sport event. Just 19 at the time, she had a prominent role as skip of the host team that went winless in nine games in the 10-team tournament.
Twelve years later, Polat is 10,197 kilometres away from home in Prince George this week playing vice-skip for Turkey at the BTK Tires & OK Tire World Women’s Curling Championship. Skipped by Dilsat Yildiz, this is the first time Turkey has ever qualified for the world women’s event. At the Olympic qualifying event in December in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, Turkey won three of its eight games, beating Japan, South Korea and Scotland.
“That helped us because they are high-level teams and it brought us experience and it made us more comfortable,” said the 31-year-old Polat, 31, an elementary school phys-ed teacher in Erzurum.
“I played at Universiade in 2011 and we worked hard and, step-by-step, we came here and we are so happy. The crowd here makes us happy, because we have never seen this level and we’ve never been in this area.”
Yildiz has played in nine European women’s championships, has been to four world mixed doubles and four world mixed events and skipped for Turkey three times at the world junior level. She also competed in the mixed doubles Olympic qualifier. Polat has 10 European women’s championships on her resume, along with three world mixed and one world mixed doubles event.
So far this week, Turkey is off to an 0-4 start this week after losing 8-3 Monday afternoon to the two-time defending champions from Switzerland. The Turks opened Saturday afternoon with a 9-6 loss to Sweden, lost 7-6 to Japan Saturday night and Canada beat them 8-4 on Sunday.
“The Canadian team is very strong,” said Yildiz, following her game Sunday. “It’s a new experience for us.”
Yildiz, a 25-year-old elementary school teacher, started curling 10 years ago in Erzurum, a city of about 448,000 people in eastern Turkey.
The 1,000-seat Milli Pyango Arena, which opened in 2010, has five sheets of curling ice and is in operation 10 months of the year. Turkey is home to three curling clubs and curling is also played in Ankara, and the Black Sea ports in northern Turkey, Trabzon and Samsun. Erzurum has a youth curling league that has about 100 kids playing. There are about 1,500 players in the entire country.
“I was 13 years old when I saw curling for the first time and I Iiked the mental, complicated parts of the game,” said Yildiz, speaking through interpreter Mustapha Said Erzeybek, the team physiotherapist.
The other three members of the Turkish team – second Berfin Sengul, 19, lead Ayse Gozutok, 31, and alternate Mihriban Polat, 23, and coach Bilal Omer Cakir are also from Erzurum.
Cakir, 32, plays for the men’s national team. Like Yildiz, he started playing after watching curling at Universiade. In 2018 he played for a mixed team at the world championship in Kelowna and finished fifth. Cakir started out as a high school gym teacher but now he’s a full-time coach. He ‘s been coaching the women’s team for three years and will be the national team coach for Turkey at the 2023 Winter Universiade in Lake Placid, N.Y.
“We’re the first curlers in Turkey,” he said. “This is a good experience for us being here but it’s not a surprise anymore because we have worked hard at it and we have spent a lot of time together. Just playing is not good enough, we want to go up, to the Olympics. In the last two years, curling playing in Turkey has improved a lot.”
Team Turkey will be back on the ice at CN Centre Tuesday at 9 a.m. to face Denmark, then will play Norway at 7 p.m.
