Meryem Bekmez (born 31 July 2000) is a Turkish race walker specialising in the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres. She is a native of Diyarbakır, Turkey. She was a member of the municipality-owned club of Kayapınar, before she was transferred by Enka SK in Istanbul.
Early life Meryem Bekmez was born in Şilbe neighborhood of Yenişehir district of Diyarbakır, southeastern Turkey on 31 July 2000. In 2013, she was discovered for athletics by Çetin Aslan, a coach of the Turkish Athletic Federation when he visited her school. She was a seventh-grade student in the middle school.
Her father Hacı Bekmez told in an interview that "she would have been married off like her sister, or would be working on the field, had she not been discovered". Born and raised in a region where the practice of child marriage for girls is common, she escaped the traditional social pressure thanks to athletics, as she has emphasized.
Sports career Bekmez placed first in the 3 km event at an intra-school running competition at provincial level. The same year, she ranked first in a nationwide competition. Following her success in provincial and then in regional events, she was allowed to participate at the Turkish championships.
After she came runner-up in the 2014 Turkish Championships, she was admitted to the national team's preparation camp. In 2015, she became Turkish champion. Her international debut came at the Balkan Athletics Championships in 2016, where she became champion.
In 2016, Bekmez became champion in the 5,000m race walk event at the 2016 European Athletics Youth Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia, and broke the 12-year national record.
She competed in the 5,000m race walk at the 2017 World U18 Championships winning a silver medal. She also competed in the 10,000m race walk at the 2017 European U20 Championships winning a bronze medal.
Bekmez and her teammate Ayşe Tekdal of the Turkey national race walking team won the bronze medal at the 2018 IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships in Taicang, China. At the 2018 IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland, she took the silver medal, and broke national records in junior and senior women's category with a time of 44:17.69. She set a national record and became World U20 leader in the 20 km walk event of the 2018 European Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany although she placed only 11th.
During the first leg of the Turkish Race Walk League held in Konya in April 2019, she set a national record in the 5,000m event of women's U20 category with her time of 21:54. She won the gold medal in juniors (U20) category of the 2019 European Race Walking Cup#Women's 10 km (U20) in Alytus, Lithuania. At the 2019 European Athletics U20 Championships held in Borås, Sweden, she captured the gold medal in the 10,000m race walk event.
Bekmez competed in the women's 20 km walk at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, finishing 21st in 1:35:08. In early 2021 she set new personal bests across several distances within a few months of each other, walking 21:05.56 for 5000 metres on 17 January, 43:23 for 10 km on 6 March and 1:28:48 for 20 km on 27 March, all Turkish records. She won the gold medal in the women's 20 km walk at the 2021 Summer World University Games, held in Chengdu, China in 2023 after a COVID-19-related postponement, finishing in 1:33:53 ahead of the Czech Republic's Eliška Martínková.
She further improved her 10,000 m track walk national record to 44:11.12 on 10 June 2023. Bekmez returned to the Olympics at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, competing in the women's 20 km walk. She went on to compete for Turkey at the 2025 Summer World University Games in the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany.
Competition record Representing 2016Balkan Athletics ChampionshipsPitești, Romania1st5,000 m race walk22.53European U18 ChampionshipsTbilisi, Georgia1st5,000 m race walk22:50.22 NR2017World U18 ChampionshipsNairobi, Kenya2nd5,000 m race walk22:32.79European U20 ChampionshipsGrosseto, Italy3rd10,000 m race walk48:33.882018World Race Walking Team ChampionshipsTaicang, China3rd10 km race walk (team)25 ptsWorld U20 ChampionshipTampere, Finland2nd10,000 m race walk44:17.69 NREuropean ChampionshipsBerlin, Germany11th20 km race walk1:31:00 WU20L, NR2019European Race Walking CupAlytus, Lithuania1st10 km race walk (U20)45:37European U20 ChampionshipsBorås, Sweden1st10,000 m race walk44:44.502021Olympic GamesTokyo, Japan21st20 km race walk1:35:082023Summer World University GamesChengdu, China1st20 km walk1:33:532024Olympic GamesParis, France20 km race walk2025Summer World University GamesRhine-Ruhr, Germany20 km walk
NR: National record WU20L: World U20 leading
References
External links
Meryem Bekmez at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics (archived, alternate link)