Naim Suleymanoglu is dead. Last night in Darling Harbour, the pint-sized god of the weightlifting world went for a new Olympic record and crashed. Three times he tried to raise 150kg of metal over his sallow, sinewed pit-bull frame and three times he toppled.
One last "Nnnnhhhh", one more famous bulge of the eyeballs, a loud thud of metal and it was over. With a smile and an exaggerated shrug which made for beautiful theatre, he exited the Olympic stage on which he carved his legend. In the stands, the Turkish fans danced and cheered for the sake of all the good days. Every man has his time.
Suleymanoglu looks like a cheeky little runt, all swagger and attitude. Stick him in a tee-shirt and leather jacket and he is Fonzie's sidekick. He stands at just under five feet tall, but to Turks he is a giant, a dazzling symbol of everything their nationality stands for.
He was born in the Ptichar region of Bulgaria, which was crammed with ethnic Turks and by his mid-teens had won adulation as a weightlifter.
However, by the mid-80s the Bulgarians were playing hardball with Turk nationals, culminating in the execution of several Turkish protesters after the language was banned.
Once Suleymanoglu was forced to take the Bulgarian interpretation of his name, he decided to bail. In December 1986, at a banquet for the Bulgarian team in Melbourne, Australia, he excused himself and walked towards the bath rooms via the Turkish embassy.
He asked for an asylum that was granted by way of a private jet. Ever the man for the perfect gesture, he kissed the ground upon touching down in his adopted country. Turkey swooned and hasn't awoken since.
That final lift was tantalisingly close - he had the bars half-raised before the weight dragged his arms behind his head and sent the bar crashing - and was the closing act on a decade of Olympic excellence.
Before the competition, video images set Suleymanoglu alongside Jessie Owens and Muhammad Ali, the voice man trembling with reverence as he spoke about the "giants of the world".
To the Turkish people though, he was Ali. After he took gold in 1988, a million turned out on the streets of Ankara to welcome him. That was enough to dissuade him from retirement. He was a pop star, a sports legend, a sex symbol.
Every kid wanted to be a midget and wear tight red lycra vests. He was minus five foot and king of the empire. Another gold followed in Barcelona and, by the time he took gold in Atlanta four years ago, he was in global fashion, painted as one of the Olympic greats.
The 1996 62kg competition took on the aspect of an old European battle as Suleymanoglu battled it out with Leonidas Sabanis of Greece. In a riveting dual, the Turk triumphed again, his third gold.
Another medal last night would have been the stuff of dreams. Maybe the good life caught up with Naim. Perhaps the 50 fags he puffs daily took their toll.
And there were new guys on the block. Sabanis was back, pushing the boundaries, briefly setting a new Olympic record in the "snatch" lift before Nikolav Pechalov eclipsed it at 150kg.
Pechalov, a Croatian who sports the type of hairdo not seen on TV since Kevin Keegan played for Hamburg, is the future of the featherweight lifting. It seemed disrespectful, almost rude, to write new Olympic standards on the same night as the grand old man of the 62kg bade farewell.
"Naim is the still the greatest on the planet," Pechalov said last night. "The reason for his failure here was probably that he could never top what he achieved four years ago. We have been friends for 16 years and will remain so. But in the competition, it was a different story."
So the curtain falls on one of true greats. No tears, though. The little man will walk tall towards old age.
MEN - 62 kg: 1, N Pechalov (Cro). Snatch 150kg, clean and jerk 175kg. Total: 325kg (Olympic record). 2, L Sabanis (Gre). Snatch 147.5kg, clean and jerk 170kg. Total: 317.5kg. 3, S Minchev (Bul). Snatch 140.0kg, clean and jerk 177.5kg. Total: 317.5kg.
Naim Suleymanoglu failed to lift 150kg.
