İsmail Akçay

İsmail Akçay — Biography

İsmail Akçay is the long-distance runner whose fourth place in the marathon at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics was, until then, Turkey's best Olympic marathon result. In Balıkesir he is called the "Athlete of the Century", and a road race bearing his name is held in the city every year; the 2026 edition is the 18th. After retiring he worked as a coach.

Born in the village of Akçakaya in Balıkesir, he attended Balıkesir Industrial Vocational High School and then a sergeants' school in Ankara, where he took up athletics, ran cross-country first and then settled on the marathon. In 1966 he won the Balkan Games and finished 16th at the European Championships in Budapest. In 1967 he was second at the Las Vegas Marathon and at the Mediterranean Games. After the 2:25:19 fourth place in Mexico he closed the season fourth at the Fukuoka Marathon in a personal best of 2:13:44. L'Équipe ranked him among the top three Europeans in its list of the world's ten best marathoners.

In 1969 he was second in Las Vegas, third in Athens and fifth at the European Championships. He won the Athens Marathon in 1970, won the Balkan Games again in 1971 and took bronze at the Mediterranean Games. He did not finish the race at Munich in 1972, and in 1973 he shared the Balkan victory with Hüseyin Aktaş. He was Turkish marathon champion in 1966, 1969, 1970 and 1972, and 10,000 m champion in 1970. He gave up active sport in 1975 and trained athletes such as Veli Ballı, Mehmet Yurdadön and Mehmet Terzi.