SOCHI Cheap Nike Air Max 97 , Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- Snowboard Cross world champion Alex Pullin has been chosen to carry the Australian flag at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games opening ceremony in Sochi.


Australian Chef de Mission Ian Chesterman made the announcement in front of athletes, coaches, VIPs and media on Thursday night in Russia, saying Pullin represents the new generation of Australian Winter Olympians.


Pullin said he was thrilled with the honor of leading the Australian team on Friday night.


The 26-year-old snowboarder, who is a favorite to take gold in Sochi, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that he felt so special to be in an individual sport and so united with the Australian team.


"That is something that is really special I think as a winter sports person from Australia to come together with the whole team," he said.


"Especially this time everyone is so strong and we have more people than ever and more, I would say medal opportunity but even top 10 opportunities which need to be appreciated too."


By Burak Akinci


ANKARA, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's former nationalist Interior Minister Meral Aksener is being touted as a possible challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the next presidential election.


She is planning to launch soon a party which would not only appeal to the nationalist platform but to a broader electorate.


One of her well-known supporters, another former nationalist minister, Koray Aydin, announced last week that Aksener, called among her supporters as the "Turkish Iron Lady," would likely run against the conservative Erdogan in the next presidential elections planned for November 2019.


The 61-year-old energetic and young-looking Aksener, who holds a PhD in history, rose to prominence as a fierce critic of president Erdogan, drawing large crowds in political meetings.


"I will challenge him, everyone knows that I am a tough one. I will restore the rule of law in Turkey," she said in a recent televised interview.


Aksener was interior minister in 1996 during the highest point of the Turkish state's struggle against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who wages a bloody war in mainly Kurdish populated southeast since 1984. And her politics still reflect her long-held nationalism.


She has still to prove that she will be a worthy challenger to the dominant president who has never lost an election since coming to power in 2002, first as prime minister and then president, since 2014.


Erdogan won very narrowly a disputed constitutional referendum in April granting him sweeping executive powers.


Over the course of the past year, the president has consolidated his hold on government and already begun exercising some of the powers that were supposed to go into effect after the 2019 election, because, he insisted, the failed coup of July 2016 had necessitated such a move.


The ardent Aksener was a prominent member of the front that campaigned for a "No" to the controversial revisions along with Turkey's largest opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the secular establishment who has been unable to score an election victory for 15 years.


The botched coup against Erdogan and his regime and the subsequent emergency rule have caused serious political and social tensions amid a massive crackdown against followers of the U.S. exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused of masterminding the plot on the night of July 15th, 2016.


More than 50,000 people have been detained so far in the unprecedented crackdown including civil servants, soldiers, and journalists.


Analysts predict that Aksener can rally support from her former party, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) from which she has been expelled with many other for having challenged the veteran and septuagenarian leader, Devlet Bahceli, but also from Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), where a disgruntled base, uncomfortable with the ongoing repression, could vote for her.


"Meral Aksener's new political party has the potential to appeal Turkey's center-right voters, which continues to be the largest segment of the Turkish electorate. She, therefore, can attract voters not only from her former party MHP but also the AKP," said to Xinhua Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.