At the age of nine, Büyükuncu became a national swimmer, and won a bronze medal in the 12-year-age category at the 1985 Balkan Swimming Championships held in Bulgaria. At the 1987 Balkan Championships held in İzmir, he won five gold medals. He repeated his five-fold gold medal performance at the 1989 Balkan Championships in Greece. In 1990, he took three gold medals at the Balkan Junior Championships held in Romania.[5]
Büyükuncu set a Games record in the 200m backstroke event at the 1993 Mediterranean Games in France and won the gold medal. The same year, he won two gold medals at the U.S. Open in Ann Arbor, Michigan and broke the record in the 100 yard backstroke event, beating world champion and record holder Jeff Rouse. Setting a record in the 100 yard backstroke, that is as of 2012 still unbroken, and a record in the 100 yard freestyle, Büyükuncu won two gold medals at the 1994 U.S. High School Swimming Championships. In 1993, he was named the "Male High School Swimmer of the Year" by the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association (NISCA) in the USA. He became the first ever Turkish swimmer to appear on the cover of Swimming World Magazine' in August 1994.[4][5][6]
Between 1994 and 1998, Büyükuncu set University of Michigan records in the 100m backstroke, 200m backstroke and 100 m butterfly events. In that time span, he set Big Ten Conference records in 100m and 200m backstroke, and was named the "Most Successful Swimmer" of Big Ten Conference in 1996 and 1998.[4][5][7]
Athletic career
In 1996, Derya Büyükuncu earned five gold medals at the 1996 Balkan Championships in Romania. He took the bronze medal at the 1997 Mediterranean Games in Bari, Italy. Winning a gold medal at the 1998 World Swimming Cup in Canada, he became the first ever Turkish swimmer to win an international competition.[8]
As of 2012, Büyükuncu holds national records in 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke events set in 2009. He has been in the Turkey national team for more than 25 years.[11][12]
Büyükuncu qualified to participate at the 2012 Summer Olympics. 2012 Summer Olympics was his sixth consecutive Olympics.[3][4][13]
Büyükuncu was sentenced to permanent deprivation of rights and an arrest warrant was issued for his post on his Twitter account against President Erdogan, who had coronavirus in 2022.[14]
Media career
Derya Büyükuncu participated at the Yok Böyle Dans (Turkish version of Dancing with the Stars) TV Show in 2010 and he got the fourth place. He also participated at the Survivor Turkey TV Show in 2011 and ended up winning the title of "Sole Champion Survivor".
