Cansu Nimet Sayın

Happy birthday to Türkiye’s sprint hurdler Cansu Nimet Sayın, the Islamic Solidarity Games champion.

In November at the sixth Islamic Solidarity Games in Riyadh, Cansu won the 100m hurdles in 13.54 at the Prince Faisal Bin Fahd Stadium. It was one of only two athletics golds Türkiye took at those Games, and it made her a continental-level champion at twenty-two. She also ran the 4x100m there, the Turkish quartet finishing fourth in 45.12.

The record behind it is a straight line. World U20 Championships semi-finalist in Nairobi at seventeen. U20 Balkan champion at eighteen, winning the 100m hurdles in 13.68. A personal best of 13.32 in June 2025. Two Turkish national titles and two Turkish indoor titles. And in February this year she won the senior Turkish indoor 60m hurdles championship, running 8.44 in the heat and 8.34 in the final.

What she did with that national title tells you as much as the title. Her post about it is mostly not about her. It is about her coach, Alper Yüksel, whom she calls canım hocam, my dear coach, and thanks for all the effort he has put into her, and about her club, ENKA, one of the biggest athletics programmes in Türkiye and the club that carried the Turkish flag at the European Champion Clubs Cup in Spain this May, where she ran the 100m hurdles.

She has fourteen posts on Instagram and eight hundred followers. She is an Islamic Solidarity Games champion.

İyi ki doğdun, Cansu! Doğum günün kutlu olsun, nice yıllara ve nice engellere. 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇹🇷