The world will be charmed again after February 12th, this time – by the magic of the Winter Olympic Games. For a couple of weeks the Canadian city of Vancouver will be hosting the 21st Winter Olympics. Exactly 8 years ago the Games were held again in North America, in Salt Lake City. This year Canada will organize its third Olympics. In the next minutes we will tell you more about the Bulgarian participation in Vancouver 2010.

Bulgaria hasn’t had any great achievements at winter Olympics, unlike the summer ones. Although being one of the participants at the first winter Olympics, held in the German resort Garmisch Partenkirchen, Bulgaria has had only one Olympic title so far – from Nagano 1998. Bulgarian biathlon competitor Ekaterina Dafovska won the first gold medal then in the 15 km run. However, the first winter Olympic medal for Bulgaria ever was won by Ivan Lebanov in Lake Placid in 1980. It was a bronze one in the 30 km cross country discipline. Bulgarian short track competitor Evgenia Radanova has won a total of three medals at two Olympic games – silver /at the 500 m distance/ and bronze /at 1500 m/ in Salt Lake City 2002, then silver again /at 500 m/ in Turin 2006.
Bulgaria will be represented in Vancouver by 18 competitors from 6 sports: Alpine skiing, short track, cross country, biathlon, snowboarding and Olympic luge.

Our snowboard competitor Alexandra Jekova is Bulgaria’s greatest hope for a medal. This will be the competitor’s second winter Olympics after the ones in Turin. Mrs Jekova has also won the European cup in bordercross. She has three second places and one third place in the World Cup’s starts. At the moment Alexandra jekova is in perfect shape and only a few days before the start of the winter Olympics in Vancouver she won the fifth place in the14th edition of the Winter Extreme Games, held in Aspen, USA. The snowboard competitor will carry the Bulgarian national flag at the official opening of the games. She said before leaving that she was in a good mood and hoped to compete well.

Evgenia Radanova is another Bulgarian hope for a medal in the short track races. This will be Evgenia’s 6th Olympics – she has taken part in 4 winter games and one summer, where she experimented unsuccessfully with cycling. Mrs Radanova, who had won 7 titles until two years ago, is not in her perfect shape but hopes to finish among the best short track competitors.
We presented you Bulgaria’s best opportunities for medals. However, being unpredictable is one of sports’ most interesting sides. It will be a pleasant surprise for us to see any of our other competitors win a medal.

For instance the Austrian racer with Bulgarian passport Kilian Albrecht , competing in the Alpine skiing discipline should be taken into consideration. He took the forth place at the slalom at the Salt Lake City games. Biathlon could also be a pleasant surprise, although Bulgaria hasn’t had a winner there for years. Obviously the Olympic participation principle will be followed in the other disciplines.
The Day of Bulgaria at the 21st Winter Olympics in Vancouver will be celebrated on February 14th. This will be our opportunity to present the Bulgarian winter resorts to the competitors and the guests of the Olympics. Moreover, Borovets, Bansko and Pamporovo are not as unknown nowadays as they used to be a decade ago. If any of our competitors wins a medal, this will doubtlessly popularize Bulgaria as a winter sports destination.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev