Varol Vardar

Life and work

The story behind the role.

Varol Vardar’s sporting background spans Greco-Roman wrestling, physical education teaching and hockey coaching. His later hockey career includes Türkiye youth national teams, Haydarpaşa club coaching, team management and education for other coaches.

His earlier competitive career was in Greco-Roman wrestling at 48 kg. An Anadolu Agency report published in Cumhuriyet on 5 August 1989 records him competing for Türkiye at the World Espoir Championships in Budapest. Cumhuriyet’s 11 May 1990 championship preview also names him as Türkiye’s 48 kg representative at the European Championships in Poznań, Poland.

Historical results archives provide further detail on this wrestling period. Güreş Dosyası lists him eighth at the 1990 European Championships and fourth at the 1995 World Military Games in the senior 48 kg Greco-Roman division. Güreşiyorum’s archive lists him as the 48 kg runner-up at the 11th Vehbi Emre tournament in İstanbul in 1993. These placings are attributed to the historical archives linked below.

Vardar also has a career in education. The Ministry of National Education staff page for Yenidoğan Fatih Ortaokulu in İstanbul’s Sancaktepe district lists him as a physical education teacher. A report dated 15 April 2019 explicitly identifies him as both the school’s teacher and Türkiye U16 women’s hockey coach at a federation talent-discovery event at Zigana Sports Facilities. The programme involved pupils from his school and connects his teaching with youth hockey development.

He was assistant coach to Zeyni Efe Bozkurt when Türkiye’s under-21 women won bronze at the European indoor championship in Luzern, Switzerland, in January 2023. The federation’s report names both coaches and records a 2–1 victory over Ukraine in the bronze-medal match. This was an achievement of the team whose coaching staff he served on.

EuroHockey’s official team report lists him as Türkiye’s head coach at the girls’ under-16 Hockey5s European Championship in Zagreb, Croatia, held from 3 to 6 July 2024. The report provides a separate international competition record of his work with developing players.

A TASKK report dated 1 April 2026 identifies Vardar as head coach of Türkiye’s under-16 women. It describes a visit to the squad’s training camp at Konya Saraçoğlu Sports Facilities as the team prepared for the European championship scheduled for July in Alanya.

His contribution to coach education is documented in the federation’s report on its 2025–26 indoor-season development seminar, held in Alanya from 13 to 16 November 2025. Vardar presented on coaching methodology and game planning alongside other national-team coaches and educators.

His federation match record also documents work in team administration: he was listed as team manager for İstanbul İl Karması (Anadolu) against Adana İl Karması on 26 April 2023 in the under-20 women’s 100th Year Republic Türkiye Championship. The match record separates this managerial assignment from the coaching post.

Vardar appeared in two iintroo Coach Opinion videos in August 2026. The 16 August discussion covered his Hockey World Cup champion prediction; the 21 August episode examined the first group phase, likely leading teams and the next-phase matchups.