Ski jumping is rarely associated with Bulgarian names, as the sport is dominated by Germans and Austrians. Bulgaria also lacks necessary infrastructure for practicing the sport. However, ski jumping is gaining popularity in this country.
This is due mainly to the successes of a young Bulgarian ski jumper born in the mountain town of Samokov. Vladimir Zografski was born in 1993 and in 2011 became a sports star in Bulgaria winning the first ski jumping title for the country at the Ski Jumping World Junior Championship in Otepaa, Estonia in 2011. Zografski continued to progress and during the same year he placed 34th among the men during the World Championship in Oslo. The Bulgarian ski jumper performed well in the World Cup competitions too, finishing 16th in Obersdorf and 19th in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. During season 2011/2012 he even finished 8th at the 100 m hill in Lillehammer. The great beginning of the skier’s career was unfortunately marred by a few mistakes leading to two disqualifications in World Cup starts in Kuusamo and Harakov. In these cases Zografski used skis that were a bit longer than the requirement for his weight. Now he has to be careful, in order not to be disqualified for the whole season. If he breaks the rules once more, he might even miss the whole of the next season.
The great successes of Vladimir Zografski showed that Bulgarians can jump. Zografski’s father, personal coach, and former Olympic competitor Emil Zografski is also responsible for the fantastic results of the skier, who gives hope for the progress of winter sports in Bulgaria to all ski fans. After the triumph of biathlon competitor Ekaterina Dafovska at the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano, where she won the first and so far only gold medal for the country at winter games, now Zografski is expected to bring more glory to Bulgaria. The talent of Zografski has already been recognized worldwide and the 18-year-old skier from Samokov has the chance to make Bulgaria a world power in ski jumping.
English: Alexander Markov
