Sprint athlete Ramil Guliyev becomes world champion

Azerbaijani athlete Ramil Guliyev achieved tremendous success. The sprint athlete running for Turkey won 200m final at World Athletics Championships in London. He finished the race in 20.09 seconds.

Guliyev was not among the favorites to win the final. Many were expecting a duel between the 400m champion from  South Africa Wayde van Niekerk and Isaac Makwala of Botswana. The latter failed, finishing only sixth, but Niekerk has claimed to be a winner until the very end.

Niekerk led after the first hundred-meter mark. However, the South African could not keep his advantage. Guliyev, who started on the fifth track, ran to the finish line and managed to snatch the first place literally in the last meters. The chronometer showed the victory of the Azerbaijani-Turkish sprinter with a 0.02 second lead.

Wayde van Niekerk and Trinidad’s Jereem Richards finished the race neck and neck. However, one thousandth of a second was in favor of a South African.

Ramil Guliyev celebrated his victory with Azerbaijani and Turkish flags.

Ramil Guliyev reached the final at the Rio Olympics 2016, but could not win a medal. Ramil took up Turkish citizenship in 2011. This is his first medal at the world championships. He entered the history of the tournament as the second European champion to win the Olympic 200 metres after the scandalous Greek Konstantinos Kenteris (2001, Edmonton). On the eve of the Olympic Games-2004, he failed to attend a doping test and was disqualified and not allowed to participate in the Olympics.

Earlier, Ramil Guliyev took second place at 2016 European 200m Championships in Amsterdam, and a few weeks before his trip to London he won the 200m final at the European Athletics Team Championships in Lille.

As for the performances of Azerbaijanis at the World Athletics Championships in London, the best results were shown by the hammer thrower Anna Skidan and the triple jumper Alexis Kopiel, who became fifth.