İrem Karamete

İrem Karamete (born June 20, 1993) is a Turkish female fencer competing in the foil event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She is the first Turkish fencer to qualify for the Olympics since 1984. Currently, she is a student at Özyeğin University in Istanbul.

Early life

İrem Karamete was born into a fencing family in Istanbul, Turkey on June 20, 1993. Her father Mehmet Karamete coached the German national fencing team and also his spouse Nili Drori. İrem's mother Nili competed in the women's individual foil events for Israel at the 1976 and 1984 Summer Olympics. Her older sister Merve Karamete performed also fencing, and was a member of national team.

After completing her secondary education at the Private Basınköy High School, she entered Özyeğin University in 2011. While initially her career choice was dentistry, she was persuaded to study industrial engineering instead.

Sports career

Karamete began with fencing sport at age of ten.

Domestic

She became Turkey Juniors champion and won the Turkish Juniors Cup.

In 2011, she became runner-up at the Turkey Fencing Championships. Karamete captured the gold medal at the Turkey Fencing Champions in 2014. She was the runner-up of the Intra Universities Fencing Championships of Turkey in 2012, and the winner in 2014 and 2015.

Karamete is the captain of her university's fencing team.

International

Karamete won a silver medal at the European Cadets Cup. In 2012, she took the gold medal at the 9th Mediterranean Junior and Cadet Fencing Championship held in Poreč, Croatia with the Turkish women's fencing team after defeating France in the final.

She has a bronze medal won at the Mediterranean Championships. Karamete competed at the 2013 World Fencing Championships in Budapest, Hungary without advancing to the Round of 32. She took the bronze medal at the 2013 Mediterranean Games in Mersin, Turkey. She captured a silver medal in Cancún, Mexico, a gold medal in Antalya, Turkey and a bronze medal each in Koçarlı, Turkey and Copenhagen, Denmark at the Satellite tournament events of the 2014–15 Fencing World Cup. She represented her country at the 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan. Karamete was the silver medalist at the 2015 Balkan Championships in Niš, Serbia.

She qualified for participation at the 2016 Rio Olympics after succeeding at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Qualification tournament held in Prague, Czech Republic. In doing so, she became the first Turkish fencer to compete at the Olympics since 1984.