Atagün Yalçınkaya | |
Fullname: | Atagün Yalçınkaya |
Weight Class: | Flyweight |
Club: | Fenerbahçe Boxing |
Birth Date: | 14 December 1986 |
Birth Place: | Altındağ, Ankara |
Height: | 1.65m (05.41feet) |
Weight: | 48kg (106lb) |
Atagün Yalçınkaya (born December 14, 1986) is a Turkish boxer in the bantamweight (54 kg) division best known for winning the silver medal in the light-flyweight category at the 2004 Olympics.
Yalçınkaya started boxing from a young age and won six titles in the schoolboy and cadet categories in Turkey.
He was successful as a teenager at international tournaments with a 2003 1st place win in the Balaton Tournament in Hungary, a 3rd place in Green Hill Cup, Pakistan and a 1st place in European Students Boxing championship, Italy.
Yalçınkaya qualified for the 2004 Summer Olympics by ending up in second place at the 4th AIBA European 2004 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Baku, Azerbaijan. He competed at light-flyweight in Athens, Greece and won a silver medal for Turkey on August 29, 2004, by beating Italy's Alfonso Pinto and reigning world champion Sergey Kazakov of Russia. At age 17, he was the youngest medal-winning sportsman in Turkish Olympics history.
He went up to flyweight (51 kg) afterwards and won the Mediterranean Games in Almeria, Spain at the 2005 world championships (Mianyang, China) he defeated Andrzej Rzany (Poland) 20-13 but lost to Georgy Balakshin (Russia) 15-36.
At the European Championships 2006 he lost early to Englishman Stuart Langley.
Later he competed at bantamweight http://www.ababoxing.com/mens%20world%20rankings%20november.html.
Yalçınkaya, 1.65 m tall, is a member of Fenerbahçe SK[1] and is coached by Enver Yilmaz.
In 2008 he signed a contract with German-based Ahmed Öner and turned pro in March 2008.