Olympians are majestic—the very word conjures up a Greek god chilling amid clouds at the top of Mount Olympus. They’re also a bit scary: To be an athlete competing at the Olympic Games is to have a level of focus and dedication that 99% of us—the mere mortals dwelling at the foot of the mountain—can’t fathom. Thankfully, then, there’s Yusuf Dikeç. The 51-year-old Turk won a silver medal on Tuesday in the 10-metre team air pistol. The shooting events have already won the internet’s hearts, thanks to the cyborg-y jackets of the air rifle contestants, and South Korean pistol-shooter Kim Yeji’s Fila assassin outfit, complete with a cyberpunk rig over her eyes to help aim.
Dikeç didn’t really go in for all this. A screengrab on him in action of TV illustrated a blissfully casual approach: no gear to speak of beyond a plain Turkey-branded t-shirt, nothing over his eyes beyond a pair of sensible black-framed glasses, his left hand nonchalantly tucked into his pocket, like he was throwing darts in an Istanbul bar rather than competing in the biggest sporting event on earth. Unsurprisingly, this image of casual excellence has gone viral around the world.
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This isn’t to question his dedication to the noble sport of air pistol. Paris is Dikeç’s fifth Olympics—he’s been competing since Beijing 2008. But this was his first medal, as well as Turkey’s first in shooting. He apparently first took up the sport while working as a non-commissioned officer for Turkey’s gendarmerie police force. But even in victory, he was nonchalant, telling Turkish media: “I did not need special equipment. I’m a natural, a natural shooter.” And it isn’t to denigrate the excellent high-tech outfits of Yeji and the rest. But it’s a lovely illustration of how it takes all kinds to make an Olympics, from the tooled-up to the normcore gunslingers.
The online love for Dikeç—and for Stephen Nedoroscik, the American pommel horse specialist seen napping on the sidelines—also speaks to the complicated relationship we have with our Olympians. They train relentlessly and put other careers on hold, all for a shot at something that makes a “normal” sport look like a safe career path. An NFL running back has dozens of chances to score a touchdown in a season. There's a Super Bowl every year.
But for an Olympian, especially one competing in a niche event that gets little-to-no coverage outside the Games, they have one shot every four years. A dud jump or an off day in the pool, and it’s back to the gym for 48 months. If you do make it to the podium, it’s likely to define the rest of your life. Accepting the Olympic bargain, and winning, can turn you into a hero.
It also places you on that Greek mountaintop far away from the rest of us. But rocking up to your event like you’re on a bodega run and then winning silver takes the idea of an Olympian down from the clouds and back to earth. It might not be strictly accurate—who among us fancies themselves going shot-for-shot with Dikeç?—but it makes those daydreams of sporting excellence that bit more accessible. According to the “philosophy” section of Dikeç’s official Olympic profile, his motto is: “Success doesn’t come with your hands in your pockets.” This time it did.