| Oya Ekici | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | 1975 (age 48–49) Ankara, Turkey | ||||||||||||||
| Team | Katana Sports Club | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Oya Ekici (born 1975) is a Turkish para-karateka, who competes in the kata K-30 disability class at international level. She started her sports career at the age of 43, and became her country's one of the first two female para-karatekas.
Oya Ekici was born in 1975. At the age of two, she contracted polio. Her right leg knee joint remained blocked. She underwent 21 surgeries in total. [1] [2] She relies on crutches to get around. [2]
She is a mother of two children. [2] She has been working as a biologist at the Hacettepe University Hospital in Ankara since 2007. [1] [3] [4]
Ekici started performing para-karate at the age of 44 in 2019, encouraged by her karateka daughter, who had been performing since six years at that time. [1] [2] In 2020, she performed para-karate with sticks trained by her coach. [1] She is a member of Katana Sports Club in Ankara and performs para-karate training twice a week coached by Turgay Okumuş. At the opening of the 2021 Turkish Seniors and Veterans Karate Championship in Adana, she performed a kata show with crutches. [3] She competes in the kata K-30 category. [5] K-30 is the physical disability classification of the kata event for the wheelchair para-karateka with impairment in the legs. [6]
The first national para-karate championship in Turkey was held at Kocaeli in December 2022. [7] She competed there, and became runner-up after Nesrin Cavadzade. [1] [2] She became so Turkey's one of the first two para-karatekas. [2]
In February 2023, she performed a para-kata show with her teammate at the Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy Hospital in Ankara to motivate the physically disabled military personnel for para-karate. [8]
Ekici is a member of the national team. She competed in the kata K-30 event at the 2022 European Karate Championships held in Gaziantep, Turkey, and won the bronze medal for the first time in the national team's history. [5] [9]
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