Elif Jale Yeşilırmak
Elif Jale Yeşilırmak, née Yulia Guramievna Rekvava, is a Russian-Turkish female wrestler. competing in the 63 kg division of women's freestyle wrestling. She is the first ever woman wrestler to represent Turkey at the Olympics. She is a member of Trakya Birlikspor.
Born on July 30, 1986 in Russia, Yulia Rekvava won the bronze medal for her native country in the 59 kg division at the 2009 European Wrestling Championships held in Vilnius, Lithuania.
She later moved from Sweden, where she lived, to Turkey, and was naturalized shortly before the 2011 World Wrestling Championships in Istanbul converting to Islam and taking the Turkish name Elif Jale Yeşilırmak.
Yeşilırmak became silver medalist in the 67 kg division at the Golden Grand Prix held in February 2012 at Klippan, Sweden. She won the bronze medal in the 63 kg division at the 2012 European Wrestling Championships held in Belgrade, Serbia. She became so the second ever woman wrestler from Turkey to win a medal at the European level after twelve years. She qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics after winning her matches with rivals from India, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and France in the 65 kg division at the World Qualification Tournament held in Taiyuan, China, where only the finalista were entitled for qualification.
She won the gold medal in the 67 kg division at the 2013 Mediterranean Games held in Mersin, Turkey.
