Weightlifter Polina Gurieva won the first Olympic medal in Turkmenistan’s history. Photo: Profimedia
Weightlifter Polina Gurieva, who brought the first Olympic medal in Turkmenistan’s history, silver in Tokyo in the 59 kg category, received an apartment, a car and $ 50,000 to reward her performance in a ceremony held on Saturday in Ashgabat, AFP reports. .
Gurieva, 21, is the first athlete in his country to win an Olympic medal. Turkmen shooter Marat Niazov won silver at the 1960 Rome Games, but competed for the Soviet Union.
The ceremony in honor of Polina Gurieva was led by the honorary coach of Turkmenistan, Serdar Berdimhamedov, the son of the country’s president, Gurbanguli Berdimhamedov, according to Agerpres.
Gurieva, who is of Russian ethnicity, received three boxes of lacquered wood. One contained the keys to a three-room apartment in the capital, the other to the keys to a Lexus car, and the third to $ 50,000.
Turkmenistan, a country of 6 million people with huge gas reserves, gained independence in 1991, after the collapse of the USSR. The country is often denounced by human rights violations for serious human rights violations.