Gazanfer Bilge
Turkish wrestler (1924–2008)
Gazanfer Bilge (July 23, 1924 – April 20, 2008) was a Turkish sports wrestler of Circassian descent who won the gold medal in the Featherweight class of Men's Freestyle Wrestling at the 1948 Olympics.
Biography
Gazanfer Bilge was born July 23, 1924, in Karamürsel, Kocaeli. He began wrestling in his age of 17, and was admitted to the national team during his military service. After winning the European champion title, he became the first Olympic gold medalist for Turkey in freestyle wrestling in London, England.
Gazanfer Bilge retired in 1953 from active sports after his exclusion from participation at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952. The International Fair Play Committee (CIFP) in Paris, France, honored him with the "2002 Public relations - Service to Sports and Community Trophy".
Gazanfer Bilge also owned a large overland coach business. He donated to the town where he was born and grown up a primary school for hearing-impaired students, a vocational school for physical education and sports at Kocaeli University, an orphanage and a building for homeless people. He also supported many young wrestlers and students with scholarships. A sports hall located in Büyükçekmece, Istanbul, opened in August 2006, is named after him as well.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1372262. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 2008, 1948 and 1953.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gazanfer Bilge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.