Students delight thousands in glorious Turkish Olympiads finale
Joy and thanksgiving prevailed as tens of thousands of people gathered in İstanbul’s grand stadium on Thursday to live experience outstanding performances of students in the 10th Turkish Olympiads.
The venue for the grand finale on Thursday was Türk Telekom Arena -- Galatasaray's new multi-billion-dollar, 52,000-capacity football stadium in İstanbul's Seyrantepe neighborhood. Thousands, arriving in the area in the hope to enter the stadium, left outside and had to watch the magnificient closing ceremony from giant screens set up outside of the stadium.
A group of 290 international performers put on a show while a 16-minute visual festival was presented to the audience with light and projection elements, depicting the world map to honor teachers emigrated to countries across the globe.
The students wore 1,000 specially-made costumes in the closing ceremony.
Animations and images was projected onto a giant screen set on the pitch. An orchestra composed of 50 musicians provided music for the night. Four giant models representing the four different continents from which the students came placed in the stadium.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his spouse Emine Erdoğan, Customs and Trade Minister Hayati Yazıcı, İstanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu, İstanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş participated in the closing ceremony.
The organizers from the International Turkish Education Association (TÜRKÇEDER) delivered Turkish Olympiads’ “Special Award” to Erdoğan for his “support for efforts to promote Turkish language.”
Turkmenistan's Ruslan Annamammedov won the most prestigious medal for singing at the Turkish Language Olympiad on Tuesday night before a crowd of tens of thousands in İstanbul, beating competitors from 135 countries. The Turkmen student delighted jury members with the song “Gülüm Benim” in the singing competition of the 10th Turkish Language Olympiad and received his award from Turkish EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış and singer Kayahan. Annamammedov then performed the winning song once again in front of a cheering audience. Azerbaijan's Sema Sultanova, dressed in traditional Azerbaijani attire, came in second with the slow song “Gönül Yarası.”
Egyptian student Mennatallah Ahmed Mahdy, who recited a Sezai Karakoç poem, won the poetry competition of the 10th International Turkish Language Olympiad on Wednesday night. The poetry final of the 10th International Turkish Language Olympiad, which took place at the Ankara Arena sports hall on Wednesday night and thousands of people, including senior officials, politicians and high-profile guests from the world of the media and arts were in attendance.
A total of 1,500 international students from 135 countries have come to Turkey for the Turkish Language Olympiad. This year's competitions, which commenced on May 30 and finished on June 14, have predominantly been held in Ankara and İstanbul, but there have also been activities in 41 other Turkish cities. The theme of this year's Olympiad is “İnsanlık için el ele” (“Hand-in-hand for humanity”).
Users on Twitter also made #turkcearenasi and #bayramobayramola as top trending topics.
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