Turkey’s Demir Ozdemir Breaks 3 More Age Records in Istanbul

Istanbul 13 + Age Time Trial Short Course Swimming Competition

• November 10-13, 2022
• Istanbul, Turkey
• 25 meters (short course meters) pool
• Full Results (PDF)

Turkey’s best young male talent in several generations Demir Ozdemir broke several senior National Records last weekend in Istanbul, including expanding his repertoire into longer events.

The 14-year old broke Turkish Age Records for boys in the 50 free, 100 free, and 200 free, and came very close in the 200 IM and 50 fly as well. He already held the records in the 50 and 100-meter freestyles, but has begun to expand his repertoire to the longer 200-meter events.

Results from the Meet:

He also came close to the 200 IM Record (missed by .3 seconds) and the 50 fly record (missed by .11 seconds).

His swims in the 100 and 200-meter freestyles rank him first in Europe among 14-year olds this season. He broke both of those Turkish Records by more than a second.

Ozdemir trains at Fenerbahce SK, one of the country’s most successful clubs across all sports. Earlier this year, he broke the country’s oldest National Record in the 100 free when he swam 53.04. In total, now, he has taken 2.8 seconds off that record – one that was previously held by a Turkish swimming legend, Ugur Taner, from 1988. Taner eventually moved to the US and won a World Championship gold medal as part of the American 400 free relay at the 1994 World Championships.

He now holds a total of 10 Turkish Age Records.

As Turkey continues to see a rise in talent across multiple genders and age groups, coinciding with the generation fully benefitting from Michael Phelps’ coach Bob Bowman working with the federation as a consultant, there have now been 25 Turkish Age Records broken in 2022. That is in addition to 6 open-age Turkish Records that have also gone down in 2022.

34 additional events saw open-age Turkish Records in 2021, plus Turkish Age Records in 98 events (in addition to ones that were re-broken in 2022).