100 km on 5 tracks and over 7,000 m of displacement only for 22 h 39 m. These are the numbers of the adventure of best Bulgarian orienteer and mountain runner Kiril Nikolov, aka the Diesel. He says that he didn’t aim at Guinness or a record, but he tried to challenge himself, to test his skills, popularizing his favorite sport. The idea for conquering the 5 highest peaks in Bulgaria with running and in the course of 24 hours only was born last year after another participation in the XCo Adventure Cup extreme contest. He was supported by Dimitar Dimitrov, an organizer of the extreme event. “When the date of the running was close, I saw the size of the organization and the huge responsibility,” Kiril admits. His challenge kicked off on August 14th at 7:33 pm at the Panitsite area in the Balkan Range and ended on August 15 at 6:44 pm in the Sofia neighborhood of Dragalevtsi, as that included the car transportation periods between the 5 stages. The Diesel stood up in front of the Botev Peak /2,376/ m in the Balkan Range, followed by Vihren Peak /2,194 m/ in Pirin, the Ruen one in Osogovo /2,251 m/, the highest peak in the Balkans – Musala /2,925 m/ in the Rila Mountain and at the end – Vitosha Mountain’s Cherni Vrah /2,290 m/.
“I had my concerns about Vihren, because I had to climb it through the night,” Kiril says. “The problem was with the lack of winter marking, it is not that visible and there is always a chance for losing in the course of 10, 20 minutes or even an hour. However, it all went well. I didn’t have any loss of time at Vihren, but at Musala I started to feel tired. Then I said that if I would crawl if I had to, but I would climb up Vitosha’s Black Peak. I never thought of giving up. I even spent 5 minutes in the waters of the Iskar River near the town of Samokov, which was really refreshing.”
Over 7,000 fans watched in real time online the unique achievement of Kiril at www.fivepeaks.bg, attracting huge interest in social networks. Besides that many of his fans supported him along the track itself.
“There were many people along the track,” Kiril recalls. “There wasn’t anyone at Botev Peak only, but there were many orienteers at the start. Then the entire orienteering team of Blagoevgrad had gathered to send me at 1:00 am at the start for Vihren. Perhaps Ruen is the most unattractive tourist destination and that’s why only a couple of friends of mine, also orienteers, waited for me there. The chair of our organization, the main organizer of the event and a photograph were all at Musala, which came as a pleasant surprise…”
Kiril has been a keen fan of the mountain ever since his early childhood, when he used to wander along mountainous paths along with his parents. Perhaps that was the reason why he opted for that occupation later on. Here is the story of his nickname – the Diesel:
“There was a biathlete from Germany when I was a kid and her name was Ushi Disl /Ushi – Bulgarian for ears/. My ears were quite prominent back then and hence the nickname – Ushi /Ears/. Then it turned to Diesel, after one of our best biathletes Irina Nikulchina had managed to take Ushi Disl’s autograph for me, which made me the happiest teenager in the world.”
At the moment Kiril Nikolov – the Diesel is the best orienteer and mountain runner in Bulgaria. He was also second in Europe in 2012 and 6th in the world. Kiril also competes for a Finnish team. He says on his next goals:
“My top goal is to become world champion in orienteering and I am close to the success, but not enough. I will keep on following my dream…”
English version: Zhivko Stanchev
