The Bulgarian Olympic Committee has launched a formal protest against incorrect historical data in the information system of the 2012 London Olympics that seem to have disregarded Bulgaria's participation in the first Summer Olympics in Athens in 1896, the organization said.

"Regarding the publication of incorrect data about Bulgaria's participation in Olympic Games, the BOC has insisted that the London 2012 infosystem be corrected. The data base of the online program incorrectly states that Bulgaria's first participation in Olympics was in 1924 in Paris, thus disregarding the indisputable fact that Bulgaria was one of the nations to have representatives at the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896," the Bulgarian Olympic Committee said in a statement Friday, just hours before the official start of London 2012.

The BOC goes further to point out that a week ago in Sofia the Bulgarian State Archives Agency displayed in a special exhibit the original decree of the Bulgarian government dating from April 5, 1896, which permits the then Ministry of National Enlightenment to send teachers Todor Yonchev, Charles Champaud, Dimitar Iliev, Panayot Belev, and university student Ivan Penchov to the Athens Olympics.

Among those, a key figure was Charles Champaud, a Swiss national and gymnast, a teacher at a Sofia high school, who competed for Bulgaria in the first Olympics, putting Bulgaria among the 14 nations that took part in Athens 1896.

"This unequivocally proves Bulgaria's place as one of the few co-founders and participants in the restored Olympics games," the BOC said Friday.

As further evidence of Bulgaria's participation in Athens 1896, the BOC cites a photo album of created by German Albert Meyer, the official photographers of the German delegation at the 1896 Olympics, which was presented to the Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I; the number of album issues corresponds to the number of participants in the first Olympics.

The Bulgarian Olympic Committee has also pointed out other mistakes in the historical data base of London 2012 regarding Bulgaria's Olympic achievements such as the fact that Vanya Gesheva won 3 medals in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and not in the 1968 Mexico Olympics, as the London 2012 website states.

The BOC has sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee's communication department insisting on the fast correction of the incorrect historical data.

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