Gizem Girişmen is a Turkish Paralympian female archer competing in the women's recurve ARW2 event.
Early years
In 1992, at the age of eleven, she was paralyzed following a traffic accident. After all, she completed her education with honors in business administration from the Bilkent University in 2004. In the same year, she was invited to an archery competition where she got interested and decided soon to practice that sport. She practised in the basement garage of her apartment building, with the permission of the neighbors. Only two years of practice and competition experience in national tournaments, Gizem Girişmen had 3rd place at 2006 EPC Archery European Championships held in the Czech Republic, which was her first international tournament.
Sporting career
Following year, she got the first place at the 2007 IPC Archery World Championships in Cheongju, South Korea. And in the same year, she also won first place in the 2007 Czech Republic International Archery Tournament. In 2008, she became second in the European Disabled Archery Grand Prix held between July 12–18 in the United Kingdom. Then, she represented Turkey at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in the category of individual recurve W1/W2 and won the gold medal by defeating her Chinese rival Fu Hongzhi. Finally in August 2009, Girişmen confirmed her World Champion status by winning the gold at the Para-Archery World Championships held in Nymburk, Czech Republic. She has been ranked Number One Archer in the World for Women's Ind. Recurve-W1/W2 since 2007. Girişmen was nominated as the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year and she is the first Turkish sportsperson, who has been nominated to this award. Gizem Girişmen is also the Turkish record holder of 30-50-60-70 meters, FITA, 70 mt round and Olymp R Match for ARW2 female category. She competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in the women's individual recurve W1/W2 event, where she lost to her Iranian opponent in the quarterfinals. She was also part of the Turkish team at the women's team recurve event, which became 5th losing to the team from Italy in the quarterfinals.
