Nagihan Karadere

Nagihan Karadere — Biography

Nagihan Karadere is the Turkish hurdler described as the first and only woman to run the 400 meters hurdles in under 56 seconds. Her 55.09 seconds from 2011 is still listed as the Turkish record. After athletics she became one of the recognizable names of the television contest Survivor, competing in several seasons and most recently finishing the 2026 edition as runner-up.

Born in a village in the Kadirli district of Osmaniye, Karadere came up through Fenerbahçe and first competed in sprint events. Her first major international success came at the 2003 Balkan Junior Athletics Championships in Constanța, where she won gold in the 400 meters, silver in the 4x400 meter relay and bronze in the 4x100 meter relay. Her real breakthrough came in the hurdles. On July 31, 2011, she broke the national record at the Turkish Athletics Super League final in Ankara, and the same year at the Summer Universiade in Shenzhen, China, she took bronze in the 400 meters hurdles and silver in the 4x400 meter relay, alongside Merve Aydın, Meliz Redif and Pınar Saka. At the 2012 London Olympics she qualified in the 400 meters hurdles but was disqualified in the heats for a false start, setting off before the gun.

Her television career began with Survivor on TV8, which started airing on February 7, 2016; in that season, filmed in the Dominican Republic, she went out in the quarter-final and finished fifth. In 2018 she reached the final and placed second. She then took part in Survivor All Star in 2022 and 2024, and in the main contest again in 2026, losing the final to Mert Nobre.