Rıfat Yıldız

Rifat Yıldız ( born January 4, 1965 in Yenigazi, Kars ) is a former German wrestler, two -time world champion and silver medalist at the 1992 Olympics in Greco-Roman Bantamweight.

Career

Rifat Yildiz grew up as the son of Turkish parents in Germany. In Aschaffenburg he began in 1982 at the sports club " unity " in the district causeway to the rings and was shaped by Franz Schmitt to a world class athlete. Rifat Yildiz was naturalized in 1987 and made ​​as of this date as a world-class wrestler for the German Wrestling Association sensation. He took in his first international tournament in 1987, the Grand Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany in Aschaffenburg, the 1st place and let it have its extraordinary potential for the Greco-Roman style seen. This potential was then already at the 1987 World Championships in Clermont- Ferrand, where Rifat immediately became Vice World Champion after a brief point defeat against Patrice Mourier from France.

In the following years 1988 and 1989 showed Rifat at major international championships but some weaknesses in the tactical area. A 4th place finish at the European Championships in Kolbotn / Norway was therefore the best result of those years. At the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988 he reached the 8th place in the bantamweight.

It then followed from 1990 to 1992 the most successful year in the career of Rifat Yildiz. No doubt he was in those years the best bantamweight in the world wrestler in Greco- Roman style. He was both in Rome in 1990 and 1991 in Varna World Champion and 1992 European champions in Copenhagen, after 1990 and 1991 respectively occupied the 3rd place at the European Championships in Poznan and Aschaffenburg.

Favorites Rifat went therefore to the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. Rifat was well prepared and struggled through superior victories over world-class wrestler William Lara from Cuba, Alexander Ignatenko from the CIS, András Sike from Hungary and Patrice Mourier in the final. There he met the Koreans at Han -bong and went straight to the beginning of the fight with 5-2 point lead. The gold medal already waved as Rifat was too passive, because he obviously wanted to save his lead over time. But the judges did not do with it and sent Rifat several times in the bottom layer, where the Koreans scored the necessary for a narrow victory points.

After this, for Rifat extremely disappointing loss, he could not repeat the performance of the years from 1990 to 1992 with the major international championships. To what extremely sporadic performances within a tournament, he was still able, however, he showed at the European Championships in 1994, where he started at featherweight when he put the reigning world champion Sergei Martynov from Russia on the shoulders. He also won in 1996 at the European Championships in Budapest and 2000 European Championships in Moscow again bronze medal in the bantamweight title with very good performances. Also, the 5th at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta is worthy of all honor. Very close to another Olympic medal was Rifat Yildiz also in Sydney in 2000. He was already 35 years old, but had well prepared for this tournament, failed after three wins in the semifinals but on the outstanding Armenian arms Nasarjan, who started for Bulgaria and was in the battle for the bronze medal against the Chinese Sheng Zetiang not have the strength a 0:2 points behind, into which he had fallen at the very beginning of the struggle to catch up. He had to settle for 4th place.

Rifat, whose older brother Fuat and his younger brother Harun were also excellent wrestler, and in his long career always everything has given and for many years for the SV " unity " Aschaffenburg Damm, the KSC Hoesbach, the AC Goldbach, the AV Mark Neukirchen and the KSV "Germania" Aalen ranking in the German Bundesliga, has worked as a coach at ASV Schaaf home today. He is regarded by his international success without doubt one of the best German wrestlers of all time.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, Ba = bantamweight until 1996-57 kg body weight, from 1998-58 kg body weight, Fe = featherweight, to 62 kg body weight)

German Championships

Swell

• Journal The wrestler from 1987 to 2000
• One Hundred Years of struggle in Germany, publishing The wrestler, Lower Berg, 1991, pages 206 and 212
• Wrestling Database of the Institute for Applied Training Science at the University of Leipzig