Radio Bulgaria

The emotions from the last Olympic games in London are now over and Bulgarian officials have already started to draw-up a balance sheet of the performance of the Bulgarian athletes. Bulgaria has won only 2 Olympic medals. The great Bulgarian wrestler Stanka Zlateva won silver medal, and boxer Tervel Pulev brought bronze medal to Bulgaria after a great performance at the Olympic boxing tournament. The Bulgarian gymnast Yordan Yovchev amazed the world after becoming the first gymnast with 6 consecutive Olympic appearances. Moreover he qualified for the final stage of the tournament, where he placed 7th. For a 3rd time in its Olympic history the Bulgarian volleyball team has reached the semifinals, but unfortunately placed 4th.

All these achievements brought joy to the Bulgarian people, which followed closely the Olympic Games. After the Olympics though, many people have expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of the Bulgarian athletes. The number of the medals is going down and the image of Bulgaria as leading country in the Olympic sports remained in the past. The Bulgarian Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said that the money spent for the training and the participation of the Bulgarian athletes at the Olympics does not correspond to the results and gave the financial system in other countries as an example. Surprisingly, countries which spent much less on their athletes won more medals than Bulgaria.

The problems in the Bulgarian sport are becoming deeper and the Bulgarian athletes and coaches are not to be blamed for that. The main cause for the bad results is the lack of a decent strategy for the development of Sports. The money given by the government is often spent in an inefficient way by the sport federations, which should focus on the development of the child schools.

Simeon Djankov also stressed on these problems and announced the results of the inspections in several sport federations. The minister said that inspectors have found huge violations in the financial activities of 4 federations. It is obvious that in such conditions the money spent from the Bulgarian government for the development of sport is a pure waste.

Minister Djankov said before the media that the government should give a new meaning to financing of sport. This includes the cut of finances for many federations. The number of violations should also go down.

Bulgaria needs new reforms in the Sport and to increase the interest among children people in sport as well as to provide better conditions for training. The officials need to better control the finances allocated in various sport federations. After all, it became clear that most of the funds did not reach the athletes, who go through lot of suffering, but were misappropriated instead. The progress of the Bulgarian sport goes through the development of the mass sport. Many researches show that only 14% of the adults in Bulgaria practice some kind of sport. Thus they give a bad example to the young generation.

The best Bulgarian Athlete Yordan Yovchev said that he will work for the construction of a modern gymnastics center in the coastal town of Varna, where children and young people can practice in decent conditions. That is why the efforts of the Bulgarian government will lead to better results if they are made in time, when Bulgarian athletes are still on the winning path. 

Translated by: Kostadin Atanasov