Süreyya Ayhan

Süreyya Ayhan Kop (born September 6, 1978) is a Turkish former female middle distance track runner who specialised in the 1500 metres.

In 1992, she started running competitively.

She graduated from the Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam Üniversitesi in sport and physical education.

Born in Korgun, Çankırı, she established herself as Turkey's top 1500 m runner with a win at the 1999 national championships, setting a Turkish record.

The following year she became the country's first female semi-finalist at the Olympic Games.

She became the first Turkish woman ever to reach an Olympic semi-final during her participation in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

The next year, she became the first Turkish woman to reach a World Championship final.

She was the best European woman athlete running 1500 m in two consecutive years 2002 and 2003.

Ayhan's father is a former amateur athlete, a local cross-country runner.

He was a role model and supporter for Süreyya when she started athletics in the junior high school.

She reached the final of the 2001 World Championships in Athletics (another first for Turkish female athletes), became the Universiade 1500 m champion and won a silver at the 2001 Mediterranean Games.

In 2002, she won Turkey's first gold medal in a European Championships by out-sprinting World and Olympics champion Gabriela Szabo from Romania for the 1500 m title 2 seconds ahead with 3:58.79, leading from the gun to the finish.

She improved further in 2003, taking two seconds off her personal best winning a silver medal in the 1500 m final of the 2003 World Championships.

On May 26, 2003, The Turkish Mint issued a 925 silver commemoration coin worth of 10 US dollars in honor of her.

Ayhan, one of Turkey's best hopes for a gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, withdrew from the games due to an injured tendon during a training in Germany.

Allegations that Ayhan may have attempted to cheat on a pre-Olympic doping test surfaced in August after testers reportedly complained of being obstructed from carrying out their work.

She was cleared of doping allegations by the IAAF, but she violated rules while taking her test.

IAAF ruled that Ayhan had not taken performance-enhancing drugs, but said the athlete had broken testing rules, and she was banned for two years.

She returned to competition but failed another test while she was training in the United States in November 2007, this time after her sample tested positive for the steroids stanozolol and methandienone metabolites.

This second offence meant she received a lifetime ban from the sport, but she contested the ruling, taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The Turkish Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced her ban to four years.

In November 2009, she was banned for life by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) due to her second anti-doping rule violation.

Ayhan ran for the sports clubs MTA Ankara and Fenerbahçe Istanbul.

She then joined the Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Sports Club.

She holds Turkish records in 800 m (2:00.64) and 1500 m (3:55.33).

Ayhan took the banning to the CAS in Lausanne, however the international court reversed the decision in November 2009, upholding the lifetime ban.