Merve Vatan (born 1 January 2005) is a Turkish sailor competing in the
windsurfing
Windsurfing is a wind-propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the Californian aerospace and surf culture. Windsurfing gain ...
class
IQFoil
iQFoil is a windsurfing class selected by World Sailing to replace the RS:X for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The discipline has similarities to Formula Windsurfing, however a notable difference is that sailors only use one sail. The sail size was o ...
. She qualified to participate at the
2024 Olympics
The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, France.
Early years
Vatan started her sailing career at İÇDAŞ Sports Club in Karabiga, Çanakkale in 2015, where she was coached by Onur Yalçın.
She competed at the T293 Europeans Championship in Michmoret, Israel.
In 2021, she won the gold medal in her age category at the Techno 293 World Championships held in
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...
The Hague
The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
, Netherlands sharing the first place with Israeli Tamar Steinberg.
Vatan participated at the
2023 Sailing World Championships
The 2023 Sailing World Championships were held in The Hague, the Netherlands, from 8 to 20 August 2023. It was the sixth edition of the Sailing World Championships and the world championships for all disciplines at the next Olympics, and for f ...
in
The Hague
The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
, Netherlands, and placed 52nd among 88 competitors.
She took part at the iQFOiL Class U21 World Championships 2023 in
Silvaplana
Silvaplana (Romansh language, Romansh: ) is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Maloja Region in the Switzerland, Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Graubünden and the name of a lake in the municipality.
History
The first ...
Çanakkale
Çanakkale is a city and seaport in Turkey on the southern shore of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. It is the seat of Çanakkale Province and Çanakkale District. She completed her secondary education at Merkez İbrahim Bodur
Anatolian High School
Anatolian High School, or Anadolu High School (), refers to public high schools in Turkey that admit their students according to high nationwide standardized test (LGS) scores, though this is not required for entering all Anatolian High Schools.
...
in Çanakkale.
She is nicknamed "Rüzgarın kızı" ("The Daughter of Wind").