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Nikola Nikolov Stanchev (September
11, 1930 – July 12, 2009) was
a Bulgarian freestyle wrestler.
He was born in Tvarditsa, Bourgas
province.
He was the 1956 Olympic
Games middle weight freestyle
wrestling champion - the first Bulgarian
Olympics gold medal - and silver medal
winner at the World championship
in Istanbul the same year.
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Boyan Radev was born on February 25,
1942 in Moshino, Pernik. He is a
former Greco
Roman wrestler from Bulgaria.
Two time Olympic champion (Tokio'1964
and Mexico'1968). World champion from
Toledo in 1966 and vice champion in
1962 and 1967.European champion in
1968 and Sportsperson of the Year of
Bulgaria in 1964,1967,1968.
It was declared as a grand master. In
2009, he received the highest award of the
International Wrestling Federation (FILA) "Golden Necklace". Boyan Radev was
adopted in the Hall of Fame of the
International Wrestling
Federation (FILA) in Oklahoma (USA).
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Stanka Zlateva Hristova was born on 1 March 1983
in Krushare,(Sliven Province) is a female Bulgarian freestyle
wrestler. She competed at the 2004 Summer
Olympics in Athens and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing,
where she won a silver medal. She was named World Female
Wrestler of the Year in 2006 and 2007 and Bulgarian
Sportsperson of the Year in 2007 and 2010.
Zlateva has been engaged in wrestling since 1997, at age 14. Her
first coach was Demir Demirev and then she trained with Valeri
Raychev in the Kyustendil sports club and in the national team,
as well as with Ognyan Raychev in the national team. Since
2006, she has been competing for Levski Sofia, where her coach
is former world champion and triple European champion
Simeon Shterev.
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Zlateva has won five world
championships (Guangzhou
2006,Baku 2007, Tokyo 2008,Moscow
2010 and Istanbul 2011).She has also
won five gold medals from European
championships (Moscow 2006, Sofia
2007, Tampere2008,Vilnius 2009 and
Baku 2010).
She was the first Bulgarian female
wrestler at the Olympics: women's
wrestling debuted at the 2004 Olympics
in Athens, and Zlateva represented
Bulgaria there, coming twelfth. At the
2008 Olympics in Beijing, she was
aspiring to win gold, but lost to the
surprising Wang Jiao of the People's
Republic of China in the final.
In late 2010, it was revealed that Zlateva
had been offered to compete
for Azerbaijan at the 2012 Olympics, but
had steadfastly refused to discuss any
such possibility with the Azeris, as she
would only be willing to
represent Bulgaria.
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Dan Koloff (1892–1940), born Doncho Kolеv
Danev (Bulgarian: Дончо Колев Данев), was a famous
Bulgarian wrestler and a national hero of Bulgaria.
A very brave man Born in the village of Sennik, Bulgaria
to a modest peasant family (on December 27, 1892),
Koloff immigrated to the United States at the age of 17.
He found work as a railroad construction worker. He
quickly impressed with his extraordinary physical power
and became famous for his ability to twist metal rails
around his neck. He even fought a bear, while hunting,
with his bare hands for an hour and finally got the chance
to kill the animal with his rifle. Witnesses saw scars of
Koloff's hands on the neck of the bear. He was
subsequently hired as a wrestler in the Victoria Circus.
Before being discovered and trained by Zbyszko
Cyganiewicz, Dan Kolov was a self-taught wrestler.
His glory days were between 1918 and 1927 during
which he was undefeated and won all 1,500 matches that
he fought. He became the first wrestler to capture
heavyweight wrestling's 'Diamond Belt' twice. He was
beaten twice in his career.
His most famous victories are:in New York vs. Latvian
Rudy Dusek – 1919 in Tokyo vs. Jiki Higen -"The
Strangler" – 1921 in Paris vs. Henri Deglane −1933
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On his return to Bulgaria as a Heavyweight
World Champion, he was welcomed by
thousands as a national hero. In his
homeland Dan Kolov devoted himself to
charity, arranging many more matches
in Sofia and donating all the proceeds to
charity. The first Bulgarian passenger
airplanes were bought with Kolov's
financing.
Koloff died in his home village of Sennik
on March 27, 1940 of tuberculosis. His
coffin was carried by officers of the Ninth
Artillery Corps from the town of Sevlievo
also escorted by an honourary company of
cavalery.
Nowadays, there is a major wrestling
tournament in Bulgaria held annually in his
honour. Kolov remains a national hero and
is still widely considered as the best
wrestler of all time.
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Georgi Kostadinov (born March
3, 1950) is a
former boxer from Bulgaria.
Kostadinov won the Olympic
Flyweight gold medal at the 1972
Munich Olympic Games for
Bulgaria.He is Bulgaria’s first
Olympic champion in boxing.
Petar Lesov (born September 12,
1960) was a Bulgarian boxer, who
won the Flyweight Gold medal at
the 1980 Summer Olympics. He is
a two-time European champion in
the flyweight division (1981 and
1983).He has won several
competitions in Bulgaria.
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Detelin Dalakliev (born 19 February 1983) is
a boxer from Bulgaria. He is competing in the
Bantamweight (– 54 kg) division, and won the gold medal
at the World Amateur Boxing Championships in Milano
2009.
Dalakliev won bronze medals at the 2003 World Amateur
Boxing Championships and 2001 and 2004 European
Amateur Boxing Championships and a silver medal at
the 2006 and 2008 European Amateur Boxing
Championships.
He competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics, but was
knocked out in the round of 16 by Aghasi Mammadov of
Azerbaijan.
He represented Bulgaria at the 2008 European Amateur
Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England. At the
championships Dalakliev defeated Welshman Andrew
Selby in the semifinals before facing inexperienced
Englishman Luke Campbell in the final.
After four rounds Bulgarian levelled the scores in the fight
to 5 each after he scored a point in the last two seconds of
the fight. The decision then went to countback and
Campbell was awarded the title making Campbell the first
Englishman to win a European amateur title since 1961.
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Kubrat Venkov Pulev (born 4 May 1981) is
a Bulgarian professional heavyweight boxer best known
to medal repeatedly at international tournaments as
an amateur, winning the gold medal in the super
heavyweight division at the 2008 European
Championships.After his success on the amateur ring
he turned up pro and from 2009 he has a personal
record of 13 wins(6 by ko) 0 losses.
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Bulgaria's women rhythmic
gymnastics team won a gold medal in
the groups competition of the 2011
Rhythmic Gymnastics World
Championship in Montpellier,
France. Reneta Kamberova, Mihaela
Maevska, Tsvetelina Naydenova,
Elena Todorova, Hristina Todrova,
and Catherin Velkova, brought to
Bulgaria the first medal from a world
championship since 2003, when the
bulgarian team won the silver
medal. In addition to the third place,
on Saturday the Bulgarian gymnasts
won a quota for the Olympics in
London in 2012.
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The Bulgarian Team of Rhythmic Gymnastics is a world champion!
The Golden Girls are back on top after the girls
of Iliana Raeva won a gold medal in a combination with two
hoops and three bands at the world championship in France. The
girls are the new world champions with ribbons and rings less than
a year before the Olympics in London. After their performance all
the people in the hall in Montpellier were cheering them up! The
Bulgarian girls who came with the last starting number, received a
score of 27.400 points, having played
a perfect combination and took their third medal of the
championship.
"Our happiest moment, was when we saw that we were on rank 1,
and our most difficult - the preparation before that"
Said Mihaela Maevska, captain of the team.
"We are very happy. We did not expect the gold medal.
We figured there would be a medal, but not the gold one."
added Elena Todorova. "We only dreamed of gold medals,
but now they are reality!" said Hristina Todorova
"We were the only ones, who did our combinations without
making mistakes, which means that we were very well prepared.
We hope that we'll get the gold medal at the olympics." said
Pashalieva - assistant coach
"The most important thing is, that the kids played four times for two
days,
without making any mistakes!" added Ananieva – assistant coach
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Delyan Dimitrov “Dido” (born 17 september
1991) is freeruner form Sofia , Bulgaria.
Before he started training freerun he won
international MMA and wrestling competitions.
Dido started training freerun in 2006 and is
known for trying high level moves outside, often
being the first to try them.
The community generally respects him for his
bravery, despite the fact that he doesn't always
land these moves succesfully.
In 2009 he took first place at “Red Bull Art of
Motion” competition and became freerun world
champion.
He is being sponsored by the sports brand
“fiveten”.
Now he continues training despite his ankle
trauma and surgery fail ,
he had second surgery which was succesful and
he should get back in shape in couple of months.
Tsvetana Pironkova is born on September
13th in 1987 in Plovdiv,Bulgaria.
Pironkova is right-handed and plays with a twohanded backhand. She achieved her career high of
world no. 31 on 13 September 2010. She is best
known for defeating Venus Williams three times at
Grand Slam tournaments. She is currently the
Bulgarian No. 1 and has won six ITF titles in her
career.Pironkova is born in the family of a
former canoeing champion
Kiril Enchev Pironkov and a former swimming
champion Radosveta Chinkova Nikolova.
She started playing tennis at the age of 4, when her
father Kiril introduced her to the game. At the age
of six, she started playing in junior tournaments in
Bulgaria. Kiril later became her coach. In 2001,
Pironkova won the Atlantic Cup International
Junior Tournament held in Bulgaria,and her career
high in juniors was world no. 227 on 25 March
2002.
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Dia Evtimova is born on April 30th in
1989 in Haskovo,Bulgaria.She si Bulgarian
tennis player too and she is a competitor
in Bulgarian Fed Cup team, with current
record 10-9..Her trainer is her father Evtim
Evtimov.In 2001 she was selected for
tennis player number 2 in Europe for
ladies to 14 years.
On September 12, 2011, she reached her
highest WTA singles ranking of 147 whilst her
best doubles ranking was 275 on June 15,
2009. In 2010, she qualified for the
Internationaux de Strasbourg where she was
defeated by Maria Sharapova in the second
round. In 2011, she qualified for the Gastein
Ladies where she reached her first WTA
quarterfinal, but there she lost to Patricia
Mayr-Achleitner.But now she has 436 point
and win the second place for ladies tennis
players in Bulgaria after Tsveti Pironkova.
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Katerina Maleeva is born on May 7th in1969 in
Sofia,Bulgaria.She is Bulgarian tennis player.She
played in the WTA tour, competing in singles,
doubles and mixed doubles between 1984 and 1997.
Her best position in the WTA rank list was number 6
in 1990. Maleeva was the second oldest of the three
children of Yulia Berberyan and Georgi Maleev. The
mother, who came from a prominent Armenian
family, which found refuge in Bulgaria after the
1896 Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire,
was the best Bulgarian tennis player in the 1960s.
After she retired from professional tennis in the
1970s, Berberyan started on a coaching career. She
was the coach of her three daughters, Katerina,
Manuela and Magdalena, each of whom eventually
became WTA top ten players. Throughout her
professional career, Maleeva has won a total of 11
WTA Tour singles titles and two titles in doubles.
She has been six times in the top ten and has a
balance of 369 victories and 210 losses. In 1994 she
married her year-long partner, Georgi Stoimenov.
The two have two children and currently live in
Sofia.
She retired in 1997.Career prize money
$2,220,371.
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The Bulgaria men's national volleyball team, controlled by the Bulgarian
Volleyball Federation, is one of the leading volleyball teams in Europe and the
world.
Its achievements include one silver medal from the World Championship (1970)
and four bronze medals (1949, 1952, 1986, 2006), as well as one fourth place (1962).
From the European Championship, Bulgaria has won one second place (1951) and
four third (1955, 1981, 1983, 2009) and four fourth places (1948, 1963, 1967, 1995).
Bulgaria has also won a silver medal from the 1980 Summer Olympic Games in
Moscow, and has a fourth place from the 1972 Olympics in Munich. The team's
World Cup has won one bronze medal (2007) and one fourth place in 1969. Other
achievements are the three World League fourth places (1994, 2004, 2006).
The team's most relevant recent results were winning third place in the 2006
Volleyball World Championship, the 2007 World Cup, and the 2009 Men's
European Volleyball Championship.
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Bulgaria was first invited to take part in the World League in 1994. In its debut season
in the tournament the team managed to finish fourth led by players like Lubo Ganev,
Dimo Tonev, Martin Stoev, etc. In the next four editions Bulgaria took part but did not
manage to tie or beat its first season performance – the team came fifth in 1995, eight
in 1996, sixth in 1997, and seventh in 1998. Bulgaria was then excluded from the World
League until the 2003 season. It has been a constant participant ever since and among
the contestants for the final phase of the tournament. Under the guidance of Milorad
Kijac the new wave of players including Teodor Salparov, Danail Mihaylov, etc. mixed
well with the more experienced Evgeni Ivanov, Plamen Konstantinov, Nikolay
Ivanov, Vladimir Nikolov, Hristo Tsvetanov to come fifth in 2003. The next year once
again under Kijac the team played some impressive games and succeeded to tie its
best performance of finishing fourth. The team included more players of the Under-21
team that the previous year managed to win a medal at the World Championships
such as Matey Kaziyski and Milushev. In 2005 with a new coach, Martin Stoev, the
team finished fifth, followed by another tied best-ever performance – fourth in 2006,
and another fifth in 2007. In 2008 the team finished seventh, while in 2009 they
finished tenth. In 2010 Bulgaria recorded another seventh place. In 2011 Bulgaria
qualified for first time in the Final Round after four years, they finished fifth.