Dilşat Yıldız (born 29 September 1996) is a Turkish female curler from Erzurum.[2] She currently skips the Turkish National Women's Curling Team. She is the first ever Turkish curler to skip a men's or women's team at the World Championship, competing in the 2022 World Women's Curling Championship.[3]
Yıldız competed in her first European Curling Championships in 2012 as second for the Elif Kızılkaya rink. The team finished 4–5 in the B Division, one game short of advancing to the playoff round.[8] After losing in a tiebreaker in both 2014 and 2015, the Turkish women's team qualified for the playoffs in the B Division at the 2016 European Curling Championships, finishing second in the round robin with a 7–2 record. The team then defeated Estonia 10–2 in the semifinal before dropping the final 6–5 to Hungary.[9] Despite the loss, the top two finish earned Turkey a spot in the A Division for the 2017 championship, the first time the country ever qualified to compete in the highest level. At the 2017 European Curling Championships, Yıldız led her Turkish squad to a 2–7 ninth-place finish, relegating Turkey back into the B Division for 2018. One of their victories, however, came against the world silver medalists team of Anna Sidorova from Russia.[10]
Back in the B Division at the 2018 European Curling Championships, Yıldız again finished in second through the round robin with a 7–2 record. She then lost to Estonia 7–3 in the semifinal before defeating Lithuania 6–5 to earn the bronze medal. This wasn't enough, however, to advance her team into the 2019 A Division. For the first time in her career, Yıldız topped the round robin at the 2019 European Curling Championships again with a 7–2 record.[11] This earned her team the top seed in the playoff round, where they easily defeated England 9–4 in the semifinal. This advanced her Turkish side to the final, which they would drop 5–2 to Italy's Veronica Zappone.[12] Despite the loss, their top two finish not only earned them a berth in the A Division for 2021, but also a spot at the 2020 World Qualification Event for a chance to qualify for the 2020 World Women's Curling Championship.[13] At the event, Yıldız led Turkey to a 4–3 round robin record, enough to earn the third playoff spot.[14] They then faced Italy for the final berth in the World Championship. Again, however, the Italians got the best of Team Turkey, defeating them 8–4 and earning the last spot at the Women's Worlds.[15] The Turkish team did not compete in any international events during the 2020–21 season due to the cancellation of all events because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[16]
The 2021–22 season was a breakout season for Turkish curling, particularly Yıldız, as the nation found relative successful in the international events they attended. At the start of the season, Erzurum hosted the 2021 Pre-Olympic Qualification Event to qualify teams for the 2021 Olympic Qualification Event. In both the women's and mixed doubles disciplines, Yıldız was successful in qualifying Turkey for the Olympic Qualification Event, finishing a perfect 5–0 with partner Uğurcan Karagöz in the mixed doubles and going 5–1 to qualify her women's team.[17][18] Their next event was the 2021 European Curling Championships, where Yıldız and her team competed in the A Division. Through the event, Turkey posted three victories against Denmark, Estonia and Italy, enough to finish in seventh place in the group. This seventh-place finish was enough to earn them a direct spot into the 2022 World Women's Curling Championship, the first time Turkey ever qualified for a men's or women's world championship.[19] Next was the Olympic Qualification Event, held December 5 to 18 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. First was the mixed doubles event, where Yıldız and her partner Uğurcan Karagöz lost all six of their matches. She then played in the women's event where she, with teammates Öznur Polat, Berfin Şengül, Ayşe Gözütok and Mihriban Polat, finished 3–5 through the round robin. Their three victories, however, came against the top three teams in the event. The team defeated the eventual Olympic gold and silver medalists Eve Muirhead and Satsuki Fujisawa, as well as the silver medalists from 2018 in Korea's Kim Eun-jung.[20] Into the new year, Yıldız and the women's team represented Turkey at the World Championship. After losing multiple close games in extra ends, the Turkish team was able to record their first victory in World Women's Championship history against Czech Republic's Alžběta Baudyšová 7–5 in Draw 17 of the event.[21] The team ultimately finished the event in eleventh place with a 2–10 record, recording their second victory against the Scottish team who had to withdraw before the event began.[22]
Team Yıldız had their best European Championship to date at the 2022 European Curling Championships. After three consecutive losses, the team won five straight games which included wins over higher seeded Germany, Denmark and Norway. In their final game, they lost a narrow 8–7 match to Sweden's Anna Hasselborg, finishing in sixth place and just outside of the playoffs.[23] As they had finished in the top eight, however, they qualified once again for the 2023 World Women's Curling Championship. There, Yıldız and her team of Öznur Polat, Mihriban Polat, Berfin Şengül and İfayet Şafak Çalıkuşu again had a slow start, going 1–4 in their first five games. They then picked up momentum, winning four of their next five games, which included wins against Japan, Korea, Germany and Denmark. Needing to win their next two games to qualify for the playoffs, they fell 10–4 to Canada, eliminating them from contention.[24] They were able to beat Scotland in their final round robin game to finish in eighth place with an even 6–6 record in their second world championship appearance.[25]
In preparation for the 2023 European Curling Championships, the Turkish women's team played in two tour events. After a fourth-place finish at the Sundbyberg Open, the team advanced to the final of the WCT Tallinn Ladies Challenger where they lost to Evelīna Barone.[26] At the Europeans in Aberdeen, the team did not replicate their success from 2022, instead finishing tied for last in the group with Czechia and Germany at 2–7. However, because their two victories came against these two teams, they finished eighth overall and earned qualification into the 2024 World Women's Curling Championship for a third straight year.[27] In the new year, the team competed in the 2024 Cortina Curling Cup where they defeated higher ranked teams such as Stefania Constantini, Marianne Rørvik and Xenia Schwaller en route to claiming Turkey's first women's World Curling Tour event title.[28] At the World Championship, Yıldız and the team had a slow start and never recovered, finishing with a 3–9 record and tenth place overall.[29] Notability, the team gave Canada's Rachel Homan one of their toughest games of the event.[30] With Turkey leading by one in the tenth, Homan needed a precise runback for the victory, which she made.[31]
Mixed
Yıldız has also competed in four World Mixed Curling Championships in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. Her best finish at the event came in 2017, where she threw fourth stones for the Turkish team skipped by Alican Karataş. The team, with Semiha Konuksever and Orhun Yüce on the front end, finished the round robin with a 5–1 record. This earned them a berth in the round of sixteen, where they defeated Hungary. They then were defeated by Norway, eliminating them from the event.[32]
Mixed doubles
Yıldız first competed at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in 2016 alongside partner Kadir Çakır. After a 4–2 round robin record, the pair lost 7–5 in a qualification game to Ireland, finishing seventeenth overall.[33] The following year, she returned with Alican Karataş. The pair had a disappointing performance, finishing 2–5 and not advancing to the knockout rounds.[34]
The 2018 championship saw Yıldız' best finish at the event as she, along with partner Uğurcan Karagöz, finished eighth out of forty teams. Through the round robin, the pair finished with a 5–2 record. They then defeated Estonia in the round of sixteen before dropping the quarterfinal match to Canada.[35] The team returned the following year and had another successful round robin, finishing third in their pool with a 5–2 record. However, an unfavorable draw shot challenge placed them just outside the playoff round, again finishing seventeenth.[36]
The 2019 edition was the last with open entry as the field was reduced to just twenty teams moving forward.[36] The top sixteen teams from the 2019 championship automatically qualified for the 2020 championship while the last four spots were decided at a qualifier. Because Turkey had finished in seventeenth, they needed to compete in the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Qualification Event to earn their spot back in the world championship. At the qualification event, Yıldız and Karagöz had an undefeated round robin record of 6–0 and defeated Austria in the first stage of the double knockout. Needing to win just one more game to qualify, the pair lost both their qualifying games to Germany and China, failing to gain back a spot in the Worlds.[37] Because the 2020 championship was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the same teams that had qualified instead competed in the 2021 championship, meaning Turkey had no chance to qualify.[38]
In December 2022, Yıldız and new partner Bilal Ömer Çakır competed at the Qualification Event. There, the pair went 4–1 in the round robin to qualify for the double knockout playoff. They won 9–7 over New Zealand in the first round before losing to Austria 9–3 in the second. This put them in the final qualifier against Finland where they stole in both the seventh and eighth ends for a 6–5 win and a berth in the World Championship.[41] At Worlds, Yıldız and Çakır finished sixth in their group with a 4–5 record, scoring wins over Austria, England, Germany and Spain.[42]
Personal life
Yıldız is employed as a physical education and sports teacher.[2] She studied at Fırat University.[43] She was a member of Çelebi S.K. in Erzurum.[6]
