Before the start of the Vancouver Winter Olympic games, Bulgaria’s only hope for a medal was snowboarder Alexandra Zhekova. Unfortunately, the thick fog in Vancouver was an obstacle to her ambitions. The 22-year-old competitor fell during a training run before the Boardercross competition. Despite pelvic and leg pain, Zhekova started the race but fell again and examination showed a muscle strain injury and an internal haematoma. Doctors said Alexandra Zhekova would need time to recover, which means the winter season for the Bulgarian, who currently holds the fourth place in the World Cup rankings, has ended.
Bulgarians also hoped that three-time Olympic short track medallist, Evgenia Radanova, could once again win a medal. In the quarterfinals of the 500m competition, Evgenia Radanova lost and took the 7th place. “This was my fastest run ever. It was very hard to keep up due to a bad injury from the beginning of the season,” Ms Radanova told the Bulgarian National Radio.
Biathlete Ekaterina Dafovska is the only Bulgarian with a gold medal from Winter Olympic Games, although Bulgaria generally does not have much success in this sport. In Vancouver young biathlete Krasimir Anev placed 25th in the 20km competition, with just two missed shots, thus becoming the most successful Bulgarian biathlete in Vancouver until now. Anev also finished 25th in the 10km competition. Bulgaria is to take part in a men’s Olympic biathlon relay for the first time in Vancouver.
© Pfoto: BGNES
Maria kirkova
We still hope that in the Alpine disciplines Bulgaria will be successful. Killian Albrecht is to take part in the Olympic slalom competition, which will be the last start in the career of the adopted Austrian. Meanwhile, Maria Kirkova showed she is in good shape finishing 33rd in the downhill race. Skier Stefan Georgiev started from 62nd position among the men but did not manage to finish the race. In the Super Combination race, which includes a downhill and slalom competition in one day, Georgiev did not finish among the first 30 skiers in the downhill race, which took him out of the second race.
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The Bulgarian men’s volleyball team of CSKA lost 0:3 against Resovia SSA Rzeszow in the 8th finals of the Volleyball Champions League. This put an end to the participation of the red team in the tournament after CSKA had a number of successful games and qualified for the most prestigious volleyball competition in Europe. In Poland, the Bulgarians played well but did not manage to win the game.
Former world chess champion Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria shared a point with Levon Aronian in a chess game from the 8th round of the chess tournament in the Spanish town of Linares. Topalov, who used the game as a training session before the game against Viswanathan Anand in Sofia, leads the rankings with 5.5 points. The tournament, which started in 1972 has a prize fund of 215 000 euro this season, as 75 000 will go to the winner.
Bulgarian female athlete Vanya Stambolova won the 400 m running competition in the track and fields athletic tournament in Vienna with a time of 51.80 seconds. This is Stambolova’s best personal result for the season. This way she moved one place up the world rankings and took the third place just two weeks before the World Indoor Championship in Doha. 8 Bulgarian athletes have already qualified for the championship, which is to start on March 10. Women athletes Ivet Lalova and Inna Eftimova will compete in the 60 m sprint discipline. Venelina Veneva will compete in the high jump. Vanya Stambolova will compete in 400 meters and Petya Dacheva will take part in the triple jump competition. The Bulgarian men to compete in the tournament are Svetoslav Buhalov (pole jump), Atanas Atanasov (long jump), and Momchil Karailiev(triple jump)
World boxing champion in 54 kg category from Milan 2009, Bulgarian boxer Detelin Dalakliev, won the most prestigious amateur boxing cup in Bulgaria – the Strandzha Cup.
English: Alexander Markov
