Pocket Hercules feels the weight of history

WHEN STEVE REDGRAVE arrived back from the Atlanta Olympics with his fourth gold medal four years ago, his reception party at Gatwick consisted of six family members and a `Welcome Home' cake from The Mirror. When Naim Suleymanoglu stepped off the plane at Ankara from the Seoul Olympics in 1988, with just his first gold hanging round his neck, there were estimated one million people to greet him.

Suleymanoglu cannot have been easy to spot for he tops out at just shy of 5 ft, but a fascinating personal history and his extraordinary feats in weightlifting have blessed him with a stature that remains immeasurable. In the rash of reviews that filled the world's newspapers at the end of last year, the `Pocket Hercules' even featured in lists of `Most Influential People of the Century'. Who knows how congested the traffic at Ankara airport will be if he were to come back with his fourth consecutive Olympic gold in a few weeks time?

It would be some achievement. Suleymanoglu retired after Atlanta and barely lifted a finger, let alone a heavy weight, for three years, which, if the feisty Turkish tabloids are to be believed, were spent largely in night clubs. But 16 months ago, he says, Sydney started to call. ``I asked my friends, my trainers, everyone: can I do it again? Can I win gold? Every one said that if I tried, I could. So after that, I believed it myself. I decided to try.''

So here he is, back in training once again lifting impossible weights above his head and it is an amazing sight. It is his arms that seem disproportionately short under the bar, but his face vibrates and he roars as it rises and his eyes smile when he locks it above his head. The little man weighs 62 kg and he has lifted three times that much; this is like a large sheep picking up a pony.

A session in the gym, like his life, is a drama. Turkey's top weightlifters prepared for Sydney in an ageing and unspectacular hangar, squeezed between buildings holding the boxers and the wrestlers. The weightlifting room 35 metres deep with five athletes on mats down either side. In the bottom corner, is Halil Mutlu, known as the Little Dynamo. Mutlu is smaller than Suleymanoglu, he is world and Olympic champion in the lighter category (56 kg) and he is an even better bet to win in Sydney.

But only when Suleymanoglu is preparing to lift does a breathless hush come over the room as huge men step gingerly away from their bars to watch. Suleymanogul's mat is not down one of the side walls, it sits alone in the middle of the top wall like a throne from where his subordinates can appreciate him. Here he is attempting to lift in one movement (the snatch discipline) a bar carrying 147 kg. Three times he fails and steps away exclaiming ``Mama mia!'' but on the fourth silence, he raises it successfully and the room responds with applause.

Some might argue that the Little Dynamo, heir to Pocket Hercules, is already worthy of his silences and his top-mat kingdom, but not the Dynamo. He refers to Hercules as ``Big Brother'' and makes a point of emphasising that he is still the king.

He also knows that, were it not for Suleymangolu, he probably would not be here. The same can be said for their coach, Enver Turkileri. For Suleymanoglu has not just broken the boundaries in his sport, he has done so in international affairs too.

He is Bulgarian by birth and remained Bulgarian until he was 19 when the authorities were suppressing ethnic Turks, banning the Turkish language, closing their mosques and changing their Islamic names. He found his own name changed and then an interview in a newspaper followed in which he was quoted as being proud to retake his ``true Bulgarian name.''

Then in Melbourne for a competition in December 1986, he excused himself from a restaurant one night and never returned. He was subsequently flown to London and brought to Ankara on the private jet belonging to the Turkish prime minister. On arrival, he knelt and kissed the tarmac and he has remained in the nation's affections ever since.

To compete in Seoul, a waiver was required from the Bulgarian government and this cost Turkey $1 million. However, his success there repaid huge dividends. So much publicity did his story draw that the suffering of the Bulgarian Turks became an international issue, Bulgaria was forced to open the door and some 300,000 of them poured out. Among them were Turkileri and a young Mutlu.

This all explains why there is a sociology professor down at training to see the little man. The professor is doing a study of how a single athlete can lift a nation. ``Turkey is not very popular in the world,'' he says. ``But Naim is a symbol for us, a symbol of strength. That is why his name - Hercules - is important, because all the world understands what that means.''

After training, in a lounge upstairs, our man stretches out his small, square frame on a sofa, relaxes with a cigarette and joshes with his team-mates, the veneer of greatness left behind in the lifting room for another day. He discusses the pressures that go with being a national hero on a break from retirement. ``Silver or bronze is nothing for me,'' he says. ``I am only satisfied with the gold. It's a big risk, of course it is, because if I've promised I will win, then I have to.

- Copyright, The Telegraph Group Ltd., London 2000

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