Cheerleaders absent for Turkey matches at World Basketball Championships

The absence of scantily clad female cheerleaders at recent World Championship basketball matches involving host nation Turkey has raised eyebrows in the overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular nation.

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Troupes of energetic cheerleaders have entertained the crowds at matches involving other teams in the tournament, but no dancers appeared during Turkey´s match against Greece on Tuesday nor their match against Russia on Sunday.

The Russia match was attended by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his wife, who wears the Muslim headscarf.

"Are cheerleaders not allowed for Turks?" asked news website Gazeteport on Wednesday.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/s...hampionships.html

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Below is a Turkish source: it says ´instead of cheerleaders, Bulent Arinc , who is Deputy Prime minister in the government, will be reading poetry during the breaks for motivation´

http://www.zaytung.com/haberdetay.asp?newsid=37348

Who´s next???

We´re going to play with Slovenia in Istanbul on 8th of September, at 21:00

I rather wait for the end of the dream on the 12th of September

The game against France will be their (Turks´ last? Turkey had organised Euro 2001 in İstanbul and made it to Final game then. This time we have a similar atmosphere here. This time we played in Sinan Erdem hall which, compared to Abdi İpekçi, is larger, more modern, a little more sanitized but less pressure felt though it was still difficult when fifteen thousand fans singing the national anthem in synch. If the Turkish players find themselves in a tense in the game against Slovenia in the 3rd quarter or last, the support may be increased tenfold.
Turkey has something of France 98 in football. If nothing goes wrong, they can aim high. The title? It does not seem impossible, but it´s far.

Quoted from: here

After watching the Russian team top the New Zealand team last night it has now been clear that French team did also let NZ team easily beat them so as not to face up the Greek team and instead preferred the Turkish team but their plan didn´t work out as they expected either.

Actually French´s plan was to face with Russia, they can manage it if NZ beat them less than 12 point difference, France tried this in last period very hard but in last 20 seconds NZ scored 7 points with two extraordinary 3 point shot and after that their plan failed simply.

Argantina - Brasil match was very well however, Serbia - Spain match was awesome. I was expecting Spain to win but Serbia was so much concantrated on the match. 

Slovenia - Turkey match will begin in ten minutes. This match will be hard and fine and I guess Turkey will win at the end. Semi final with Serbia will be harder but i guess Turkey is able to win that match too. I really wonder the result of Turkey - USA final. 

Afterall, despite the lack of many star players, i watch a wonderful tournement nowadays. 

After watching the Turkish team beat Slovenia, I have started to believe that we may make our way into the final (Slavica would disagree for sure) and win the championship as well. But first we need to pass Serbia. Let´s wait and see.

Everything may happen... Serbian national team has been "raised from ashes" by our coach Duda Ivković and reaching semifinale is alraedy a success. Of course, we also hope to play in final match and win the championship, but we must consider one more fact – Türkiye will have one player more, audience, and advantage of the host. So, let the better win

Anyway, even if  Türkiye win, I won´t suffer much, because not only your coach, Bogdan Tanjević, an excellent and experienced expert, is a Serbian, but also several of "12 Dev Adam" - Hedo Türkoğlu, Semih Erden, Mirsad Türkcan, Mehmet Okur (I´m not sure if they all play in recent national team) – have their origins in Srbia/Montenegro

I´m an avid basketball fan here in usa. In my opinion, I think international basketball players are definitely leading the teams here and they are some of the toughest players in the world.  Think about it, they played in teams around the world and had to play under different coaches and learn different tactics, deal with language barriers and cultures, overcome many obstacles and still somehow get out on the floor and play hard!  My local team, has had some excellent international  players and now we will see Hedo here soon....  Much respect to all the teams in FIBA, win or lose, they worked hard to get to the finals.. GO TURKEY!

I´ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I´ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I´ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I´ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. -

Michael Jordan

Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen. -

Michael Jordan