This is all well and good, but it’s a damn shame that most of you don’t know much about the great lifters of the past. It’s understandable. You’re not historians, so you get a pass if you don’t know the old legends. But there’s one guy in particular who nobody gets a free pass on. You absolutely must know about this man. Do you want to know why? Because he’s the single greatest weightlifter in the history of the world. I’ve been in the game for over three decades, and I’ve rarely heard any disagreement about this. Everybody I’ve ever talked to who knew anything at all about Olympic weightlifting has said the same name when we ask who the best of all time is. I’m talking about Naim Suleymanoglu.

Naim was the first three-time Olympic gold medalist in weightlifting. He won in 1988, 1992, and 1996. It’s also generally accepted that he would have won in 1984 if it hadn’t been for the Eastern Bloc boycott that year. In addition to these three Olympic gold medals, he also won multiple world championships and broke world records almost every time he competed from his teenage years through the end of his career. His winning total at the 1988 Olympics, 342.5 kg in the 60 kg weight class, is mathematically the greatest performance in the history of weightlifting.

I want to tell you some things about Naim's life in this article. You should know about him for basic weightlifting literacy, if nothing else. However, I completely believe your own career as either a coach or athlete can benefit from this man’s story. Athletes need inspiration. They need standards of greatness to aspire to. They need to know about people who have done the impossible so they can believe they are capable of legendary things themselves. Every weightlifter of my generation felt Naim’s amazing presence during their years on the platform, and the things he accomplished made us think nothing was out of reach. So now, I want to pass this along to all of you. He isn’t with us anymore, but his story needs to stay alive for as long as people are putting barbells over their heads.

Oppression right from the start

Malcolm Gladwell once said, “Stories are an incredibly effective way to communicate ideas.” I’ve always believed in this, and I’ve always particularly believed that inspirational stories about overcoming adversity are the best kind. When we hear about people who have fought through hell, sometimes we can find inner strength of our own. This is why movies like Rocky have always been so popular. We see the tremendous obstacles that people have been able to beat, and we come to believe in our own ability to smash the barriers that stand in our way. This is why Naim’s story means so much.

He was born as an ethnic Turk in Bulgaria, which was a complication right from the beginning. Ethnic Turks have faced terrible discrimination and persecution in Bulgaria throughout history, and especially during the time when Naim was a kid. On top of that, he wasn’t even 5 feet tall by the time he became a teenager. Little kids often get picked on, as we all know. When you combine all of these factors, you get an idea about what kind of young life this guy had.

But despite that, he was selected for a Bulgarian sports academy, put into weightlifting, and quickly rose to be one of the dominant lifters in the world. By the time Naim was 16, he was smashing world records and dominating international competition. His performances were so strong, one of his coaches once said, “On his first attempt, he wins the competition. On his second attempt, he breaks the world record. His third attempt? He does not need a third attempt.” Naim became a source of tremendous national pride in Bulgaria, so guess what happened?

The Bulgarian government forced him to change his name. They didn’t want one of their superstars having a Turkish last name like Suleymanoglu, so they made him change his name to Naum Shalamanov so he would sound more Bulgarian. Stop and think about this for a second. Currently, we’re living in a time when people are extremely prickly about allowing the government to overstep its boundaries in regard to their personal freedoms. Hell, many people in the United States are willing to go to battle over wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Imagine what it would be like having a government that forces you to change your name to something they like the sound of. We’re not talking about asking you to wear a mask. We’re talking about forcing you to forsake your identity and your heritage in a very literal way. Think about the internal conflict and frustration that must’ve come along with this. It would drive most of us crazy, and it sure as hell wouldn’t make us want to go out and win glorious titles for the people who were oppressing us. But it didn’t stop him, that’s for sure.

Seizing his moment

He rampaged through the sport, winning world championships and smashing world records in the mid-1980s with a level of dominance nobody had ever seen before. Then, he risked at all. He wanted out of Bulgaria so bad, he decided to roll the dice with his entire future. During an international competition trip in Australia, he ducked out of the window of a restaurant bathroom and fled for the Turkish Embassy. He was transported in secret to Turkey, where the Prime Minister of the country adopted him and paid the Bulgarian government $1 million to let him go. This was only a year before the 1988 Olympics. Obviously, this change meant he was going to represent Turkey in the Olympics…and he would now be competing against Bulgaria.

What kind of pressure do you think he felt? How bad do you think he wanted to win that Olympic gold medal for Turkey? He had the expectations of an entire nation hanging over his head, and the eyes of the whole world were locked on him. And to make it even scarier, his top competitor in the 60 kg weight class at the ‘88 Games was a Bulgarian animal named Stefan Topurov, who had been the first man in history to clean and jerk triple bodyweight only a few years earlier.

I don’t think we can fully describe the depth of how badly he wanted victory in 1988. It gave him a chance to stand at the top of the world with his own name, for his true home country, finally having broken away from the Bulgarian communist regime that had used him as a pawn and denied him the basic right to keep his own name. All of this resulted in the most fantastic performance in the history of Olympic weightlifting.

In the 60 kg weight class, Naim snatched 152.5 kg, clean and jerked 190 kg, and totaled 342.5 kg. That snatch of 152.5 was 2.5 times his own bodyweight. Whip out a calculator right now and figure out a weight that’s 2.5 times your own body weight, and imagine snatching it. The 190 kg clean and jerk was 10 kg over triple bodyweight. Do the same trick with your calculator again. Triple your bodyweight and add 10 kg. Get the picture? There has never been a level of performance like this, either before or after. To state it quite simply, no Olympic weightlifter has ever been as good as Naim Suleymanoglu was on that day. Stefan Topurov of Bulgaria, by the way, totaled 312.5 kg for the silver metal. He wasn’t even in the picture.

I always look at this story through two lenses. The first one is the wonderful strength of mind and character Naim showed throughout this experience. He had to fight through things most of us will never face. The strength of his spirit to stay focused and hopeful, along with the belief in himself to accomplish what he eventually did…it’s a lesson for the ages.

The second lens of the story is simply that damn total. In the 32 years since Naim’s 1988 performance, no weightlifter has ever equaled what he did that day, in any mathematical sense. 342.5 @ 60 kg sits at the center of the sport like a 2000-pound immovable anvil. Nobody has touched it. Nobody has even come that close.

Legacy

Naim’s story changed Turkey. Prior to 1988, their weightlifting program was almost nonexistent. In the years afterwards, it rose to become one of the best in the world. Generations of young Turks made it their mission in life to follow in his footsteps, just like little basketball players do with Michael Jordan in this country. Naim went on to win the Olympics two more times, as we mentioned. He had an easy win in 1992, and then in 1996 he won the greatest weightlifting competition in the history of the sport. If you’ve never seen the video of his battle with Valerios Leonidis of Greece at the 1996 Games, do yourself a favor and watch it. I can’t do it justice in this article. Suffice to say, I know 50-year weightlifting veterans who still say it was the high point of the sport’s history in terms of thrills, drama, and competitiveness.

Unfortunately, Naim didn’t succeed in growing old. Like many legends, he passed away at a relatively young age, succumbing to liver failure when he was 50 years old.

Time will go on, as it always does. New legends will rise, and records will be broken. I suppose it’s possible that we might see a weightlifter someday who eclipses what Naim did. But even if that happens, it’s important that his story is never forgotten. I’m writing this article because I want to continue telling it to future generations for as long as possible.

Every one of you has limitations in your head that you’ve placed on yourself. Even if you take a lot of pride in being fearless and tough minded, you still have obstacles that linger in the back of your heart. They’re the things you worry you might never be able to overcome. When you hear the story of Naim Suleymanoglu, it makes you look at everything differently. This guy had limitations and obstacles that were probably more severe and serious than any of yours. He had an entire government trying to strip away his identity and milk him for world championships at the same time. He was raised feeling like an outcast in his society. And he simply never let any of it stop him. He propelled himself above it all, relying completely on his heart, talent, and courage.

He exhibited the qualities that we all need if we ever want to achieve greatness. He showed unparalleled work ethic over a long period of time, he took risks, he never ran away from the toughest challenges, and he always believed in himself. He knew he was great. I heard a story once about Naim’s time in Bulgaria. There was once a situation where the national team basically decided to protest against the brutal practices of coach Ivan Abadjiev. It was a borderline mutiny because they thought Abadjiev, who was nicknamed “The Butcher,” was going completely over the line with his demands. Abadjiev knew there was dissention in the ranks, so he called the entire national team together for a meeting and made them stand shoulder-to-shoulder on a line. He stood in front of them and said, “If any of you don’t want to go along with how I run this team, step forward. I can replace you instantly. All of you can be replaced.”

The team froze, obviously scared to make a move because they didn’t want to flush their careers on the national team down the toilet. But after a few seconds, Naim stepped forward. He looked Abadjiev in the face and said, “You could never replace me. There is no one like me.” From what I’ve been told, that was the end of the meeting.

Imagine having that kind of belief in yourself. Some of you battle self-confidence. You battle your past, and your doubts about your own capabilities. You feel like people are trying to bring you down. Take a page from this man’s book. Naim could’ve lost on his big day in 1988 when he finally represented Turkey with the eyes of the whole world on him. He could’ve bombed out. Anything could’ve happened. But he stepped up anyway. With the pressure of an entire country on his shoulders, he stepped up. He put his hands on barbells that no human in the world has ever lifted. He did this because he was strong inside. And that’s where the lesson is for all of us.

When you know deep down inside that you’re a winner, it gives you courage. It gives you the bravery to stand up to the toughest challenges. And even if you lose, as Naim could have lost at any of those critical junctures of his career, you still go out knowing that you showed the toughness of spirit that will give you pride and faith in yourself for the rest of your life when you look back on it.

I watched Naim’s 1988 performance when I was 16 years old, and I’ve never forgotten it. I never met the man, but his life story strengthened me inside. It made me believe in courage and daring. Our entire sport owes a debt of gratitude to Naim Suleymanoglu, and that’s why I wanted to tell you about him.