Now that the enthusiasm for the glorious days of our sport in August has subsided, let’s take a cooler look at the progress. Therefore, I am proud to write that not everything that glitters is always gold, although there is a lot of gold, but also silver that flocked to the country from the European Championships. And this applies mainly to gymnastics and athletics.

“Instrumental gymnastics is bloody. It needs support and renewal,” said Olympic hoop champion Lefteris Petrunias.

Ender, Asil, Arizhan. Do these names mean anything to you? These are Turkish gymnasts who excelled at the European Championships. And if we celebrate the victory of Petrunias, in our only participation in the final, then what about the neighbors who took 2nd and 3rd places in total and reached the final seven times (with a silver medal)?

But if we only have one gold in gymnastics, what’s the point of including track and field, four golds and one silver in that category? Simply because 4th place in medals hides the reality. This is due to the eight-based rankings, not the existence of a few excellent medal-winning athletes, often opportunistic. Let’s ask ourselves, what about the length after Tedoglu? After Jango, what about the javelin? And what happens in a large group of races (semi- and endurance), as well as in many others, where performance is at the level of … the 1960s? All this can be seen in action in 2023, at the European National Team Championship. Last year we were 16th. Which corresponds to the 15th place we took in Munich. So let’s not brag that we suddenly became a superpower in European athletics…