Deniz Nazar

Who is Deniz Nazar?

Dmytro Valeriyovych Nazarenko is a Ukrainian-born Turkish swimmer, who specialized in individual medley events. He is a fifth-place finalist in the 400 m individual medley at the 2002 European Short Course Swimming Championships in Riesa, Germany.

Nazar made his official debut at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, where he competed in the men's 400 m individual medley. Swimming in heat three, he edged out Slovenia's Marko Milenkovič to take a fifth seed and twenty-eighth overall by a 1.36-second margin in 4:25.26.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Nazar placed twenty-sixth overall in the 400 m individual medley. Swimming in heat four on the morning's preliminaries, Nazar saved a seventh spot and twenty-sixth overall against China's Liu Weijia, who finished behind him by less than 0.13 of a second, with a time of 4:26.15.

Eight years later, Nazar accepted a nationality transfer by FINA to play for the Turkish team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, under a new name Deniz Nazar. He achieved a FINA B-standard entry time of 4:26.64 from the Croatian Open Championships in Dubrovnik. For his third time in the 400 m individual medley, Nazar challenged five other swimmers in heat one, including two-time Olympians Vasilii Danilov of Kyrgyzstan and Hocine Haciane of Andorra. He touched out Haciane to take a fourth spot by a 1.20-second margin with a time of 4:30.80. Nazar failed to qualify for the final, as he placed twenty-eighth overall on the first night of preliminaries.