Cemal Kütahya

Cemal Kütahya — Biography

Cemal Kütahya (12 June 1990, Konya - February 2023, Antakya) was a Turkish athlete and schoolteacher who captained both the national handball team and the national beach handball team, and who stood 1.87 m tall. Most sources give 12 June 1990 as his birth date; the 6 December in the English Wikipedia article and the 10 June in the French one stand against every other record.

His best-known achievement came in the sand: Anadolu Agency reported that he finished the 2021 European Beach Handball Championship as top scorer. Alongside international duty he worked as a teacher.

He was killed in the earthquake of 6 February 2023, trapped when the Rönesans Rezidans building in Antakya, where he was staying with his family, collapsed. After a week of searching, his body and that of his five-year-old son Çınar were recovered on 13 February, and both were buried in Konya. His wife and mother remained missing for a long period afterwards. A memorial forest was dedicated to him in October 2023, his grave is visited on the anniversary, and the court case over the building's collapse was still running years later.