Serkan Yıldırım

Serkan Yıldırım — Biography

Serkan Yıldırım, known in Persian as Sajjad Hashemi Ahangari, is a sprinter who has represented first Iran and then Turkey. He gave up able-bodied athletics because of declining eyesight and moved to para athletics in the T12 class; in 2024 he became a world champion in Kobe and set a world record over 400 meters. That year's Paris Paralympics, however, were overshadowed by a classification dispute.

Born in Tabriz, he was one of Iran's brightest 400-metre runners in his youth. He reached the semi-finals at the 2007 World Youth Championships, won the 400 m at the 2010 Asian Junior Championships, set a national junior record of 46.57 at the West Asian Championships in Aleppo that year and helped break Iran's 4x400 m relay record. In 2011 he won the Military World Games with a national record of 45.81. He ran the 400 m for Iran at the 2012 London Olympics, won relay silver at the 2016 Asian Indoor Championships and bronze in 2018, and competed for Iran until September 2022.

Competing for Turkey from 2024, he set a championship record of 10.53 in the 100 m at Kobe and also took the 400 m gold. The world para athletics body later placed his classification under review. Under an injunction from a court in Bonn he ran the 100 m in Paris and won gold, but after the appeal against the injunction was upheld his medal was revoked on September 3, 2024. In July 2026 he won a gold medal in Mexico.