Mr. Faruk Nafız Özak, Minister of Youth and Sports, visited the event venue of the world coastal championship in Caddebostan. Inspecting the event venue with Mr. İlhami İşseven, the President of the Turkish Rowing Federation, and other officials, Mr. Özak got detailed information on the championship.

The Minister indicated that the Federation performed a successful work both during the nomination and the execution periods of the championship and said that: ''In the 21st century, the saying now goes that 'Turkey does the best.' When we nominate for any event, nobody thinks ‘Can Turkey do this?’ any more. This is not true only for sports, but for the overall reputation of Turkey. We manage to stay standing despite the global economic crisis. Events are unfortunately delayed, suspended or cancelled because of the crisis. We would like to thank very much the president and his valuable colleagues for this very successful event.”

Mr. Özak stated that they give every support for holding the championship again in Turkey in the next years and told, 'Our country is surrounded by sea in 3 sides. We have to do our best. I think we lag behind both in rowing and coastal rowing in terms of the number of individual athletes and of clubs. We absolutely have to do our best in this matter.”

Emphasizing that, beyond being only the most beautiful city in the world, Istanbul is also a city of sports, 'Mr. Özak told that, 'More than 50 international event are held in Istanbul within a year. We held the second greatest sports event in the world just 45 days ago. The new and former presidents of the FIBA told me, 'we have never seen such a beautiful event.' We see this in all sport disciples from cycling to volleyball. Turkey is now very successful in the organization of sport events.”

Mr. Faruk Nafiz Özak also got acquainted with Rose Savage, author and honorary guest of the championship, who gave a series of panel discussions during the event. Rose Savage, the only woman who crossed the two great oceans by rowing, had a long conversation with Mr. Özak to whom she presented a signed copy of her book and a specially-designed board carrying her signature and handprints.