Turkish athletes vote in Anadolu Agency photo contest

By Muhammed Enes Calli

ANKARA (AA) – Record-breaking Turkish athletes Mete Gazoz and Derya Can selected images for the Anadolu Agency's Photos of the Year competition for this year, choosing their favorite entries in the news, life and sports categories.

The 19-year-old archer Gazoz, who broke a world record in junior category and European record in senior category, voted for Ozan Efeoglu’s image -- titled Evaluation of the cost of damage after flood in Hatay -- in the news category.

In the life category, he selected Ozkan Bilgin's photo -- titled Supermoon in Turkey's Van.

In the sports section, Gazoz voted for Sebnem Coskun’s photo showing training of Turkey’s world-record holding free diver Sahika Encumen.

World free-diving champion Derya Can also made her selection of the photos.

Muhammed Said's photo -- titled Airstrikes continue to hit Syria's Idlib, Burak Akay's image -- titled Forest Fire in Turkey's Canakkale -- and Faiz Abu Rmeleh's photo -- titled Israeli forces attack Palestinian worshippers in Al-Aqsa -- were chosen by Can.

The first contest of the agency was held in 2012. This year, 50 images were selected from more than 750,000 photographs from different parts of the world, including Syria, Palestine, Russia, Germany and Spain.

The images were put to a vote in the news category which had 17 entries, life with 19 and sports had 14 entries with captions in Turkish and English languages.

Last year, 223,000 people took part in the voting.

This year's voting will continue through Dec. 31 at Anadolu Agency's website (aa.com.tr).