Haydar Aşan

At the age of 15 Haydar Aşan began playing football in addition to taking up athletics and amateur boxing. By the age of 18 Aşan had joined Fenerbahçe as a professional footballer before moving to Galatasaray, where he stayed for the next ten years. He was a talented track and field athlete, setting Turkish records in both the high jump and pole vault in 1927, reclaiming the national record in the latter in 1933. Aşan represented Turkey at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics where he ran in the 4 × 100 metres relay and competed in the high jump.

At the Balkan Athletics Championships in 1931 and 1932 Aşan won silver before winning a gold medal in 1933, the first time that a Turkish athlete had won a title at the championships. He moved to the United States in 1938 and later became an American citizen. Aşan died in Alameda County, California, in 1996 just shy of his 90th birthday.

Personal Best: HJ – 1.86 (1932).