The 2016 Rio Olympic Games are now over and President Rosen Plevneliev has already shaken the hands of the medal-winners. Those were all ladies: Mirela Demireva with silver in the high jump and bronze for wrestler Elitsa Yankova and the rhythmic gymnastics ensemble. Thus the Bulgarian delegation /51 members/ shared the 65^th position with Venezuela in terms of medals won. This is the poorest result for this country after the 1952 Helsinki and 2012 London-held games. To compare in 1980 the Bulgarian athletes won in Moscow 41 medals – 8 gold ones, 16 silver and 17 bronze, finishing third in the rankings.

The Rio Olympiad had a bitter taste in another relation as well – our top hurdle-race competitor Silvia Danekova was charged with the usage of the banned methoxy polyethylene glycol-epoetin beta /CERA/, found on the list of over 5,000 substances not allowed to racers. The sports ministry condemned the athlete at once due to the image of Bulgaria having been ruined and stated: “The athlete had been tested by our anti-doping organization before the Olympiad and after her Rio arrival she gave another sample – both results were negative. On August 1 a new test gave a positive result for the existence of banned substances.” Thus the athlete, claiming a manipulated test was left to prove her words. She initiated a press-conference and said:

“I am 33 years old. My 25-year-long sports career would end up after this Olympiad. This is not logical at all – nobody would want to end his or her career that way. I have always considered myself a tiny competitor, not a great one. However, this won’t prevent me from continuing to fight a huge injustice. I do state that I have not used the banned substance,” Danekova said and gave her version of the story:

“Less than a month before the departure to Rio I was tested negatively in Romania. Then I went to a sports camp in Belmeken – a place where constant WADA tests are carried out, alongside the ones of our own anti-doping agency. So, there is no way for an abuse there. On July 26 I entered the Olympic village in Rio with the clear understanding that tests there would be constant and the control would be ongoing.”

She was urine-tested on July 30 with a negative result. Then on August 1 another test followed and it was positive this time. “The initial sample was with low density – 1.04 and that’s why I ate something. Then a couple of hours later a new test was done with a normal density of 1.06. A letter arrived on August 8, reading that the doping test had been positive. I required a B test, which was also positive, but the urine was with density of 1.09. There can’t be such a difference in the sample I gave and the one they took out for the B test,” the competitor says and adds:

“There are two options: it’s either someone else’s urine or the sample hasn’t been stored correctly. That is why I will go to the end in the fight for my name and against this injustice,” Danekova said.

She stated that she would file a trial against WADA before the Sofia City Court, the Bulgarian Athletics Federation and the Bulgarian Anti-Doping Centre and that she would present evidence on her sample having been manipulated.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev