“Be in the Center of Movement!” We care deeply about all of our fellow citizens who live in our beautiful city of Konya, knowing that the greatest wealth is health. We are aware of the fact that sports and movement are necessary for healthy living. Accordingly, we have implemented many works in order to steer our citizens toward sports and a moving lifestyle; and turn our Konya into a true sports city. With our Sports Konya Project, we have brought 25.574 of our students at our Sports Schools in 28 of our rural districts together with sports in 3 different periods and 25 branches. We are aiming to bring 10.000 more of our students together with sports with our Winter Sports Schools. In addition; we also have one of the prettiest stadiums and the most modern sports complexes of the world. Turkey’s first Olympic velodrome is being held in our Konya. Our athletic field, our Olympic swimming pool, our new sports halls and gymnasiums; are rising up for our young people and all of our sports fans. We have also recently started building the Konyaspor Kayacık Facilities, which will be a work of art to befit the 100th anniversary of our Konyaspor. Our Konya Metropolitan Sports Club carries on with its works nonstop with 11 Branches, 21 Trainers, 860 Active Athletes and 3.825 Registered Athletes. The 5th of the Islamic Solidarity Games, which is the most comprehensive and biggest organization of the world of Islam and which will bring together nearly 3 thousand athletes and thousands of spectators from 56 countries, will take place in our Konya in August 2022. We are also preparing our city for these Olympic games in the nicest way possible. Cycling, which is becoming more and more common in the world in our days, is a pretty important activity both for human health and for the protection of the environment. Konya has the title of “the city with the highest rate of cycling” among the cities of our countries as its geographical structure is fit for it, and as a result of our citizens’ sensitivity on the subject as well as our intense efforts. We currently have the longest bike lane network in Turkey and the second longest in the world with 550 kilometers. We are extremely pleased by the fact that cycling has become this common in our city as a result of all of our other efforts. In addition to all of these, we are aiming to popularize sports and movement in every part of life as per our Konya Model Municipality approach. To that end, we are commencing the Konya Half Marathon which will be a big hit both locally and nationally and which will make a significant contribution to running sports on March 20, 2022. We have established the first slogan of the Konya Half Marathon which we plan to hold annually as a tradition to be ““Be in the Center of Movement!” based on the dynamic structure and geographical location of our city. I wholeheartedly believe that this event will yield quite wonderful results for our Konya, the city of sports, and our country. I wish in advance that our marathon will be a blessing in disguise for all sports fans and our city.

Uğur İbrahim Altay
Konya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor