Ahead of the historic Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling Festival, top wrestlers slated to compete in the preliminaries have announced their decision to boycott the event in protest of a new qualifying format being implemented for the first time this year.
The 663rd edition of the festival is scheduled to take place in Edirne from July 5-7.
Wrestlers who failed to secure a spot in the top 32 of the CW Energy Türkiye Oil Wrestling League, a precursor to the Kırkpınar event, have come together to release a joint statement.
In their social media announcement, the wrestlers slated to compete in the preliminaries for a chance to participate in Kırkpınar expressed their discontent with the new qualifying rules, which they argue disregard the traditions of Turkish oil wrestling and arbitrarily prevent top wrestlers from participating in the main event.
"We, as the top wrestlers, announce that we will not participate in the preliminary matches scheduled for Thursday in protest of the unfair qualifying system imposed by the Turkish Traditional Wrestling Federation (TTWF)," the statement read.
"Despite our efforts to convey the injustice of the system, which requires wrestlers to finish in the top 8 of the league after three rounds to qualify for Kırkpınar, no corrective action has been taken. We declare that we will not wrestle on Thursday, and we express our desire for a united front among all wrestlers to boycott the preliminaries. We also inform the public that we have filed lawsuits against the relevant authorities to challenge the new rules and emphasize that we only wish to wrestle," the statement concluded.
The wrestlers set to boycott the preliminaries include Ismail Erkal, Yalçın Üncül, Cengizhan Şimşek, Hasan Cengiz, Serkan Serttürk, Okan Acar, Ali Yanatma, Hamza Köseoğlu, Bekir Eryücel, Mecit Yıldırım, Süleyman Aykırı, Abdullah Güngör, Rıza Yıldırım, Arif Akın, İsmail Güzel, Onur Balcı, Yunus Emre Yaman, Atilla Güzel, Hamza Özkaradeniz, Yıldıray Pala, Seçkin Duman, Semih Turgut, Şahali Kurt, Kaan Kaya, Recep Çakır, Salih Erinç, Menderes Saltık, Feyzullah Aktürk and Cenk İldem.