Bulgaria Eyes Olympic Heights

Novinite Insider » EDITORIAL | February 10, 2006, Friday // 00:00
Bulgaria Eyes Olympic Heights In addition to new stadiums, Turin by 2008 will complete a EUR 1.2 B, 15-station subway system. It has built houses for 15,000 people in former industrial areas, expanded and modernized the airport. Photo by torino2006.org

By Ivelina Puhaleva

They have worked hard over the past four years and now, during the 20-th Winter Olympic Games, they hope to see their efforts rewarded.

Although Bulgaria participates with only 21 athletes, it stands very good chances of winning a medal during the 17-day events.

Bulgaria's medal tally from Winter Olympics so far includes one silver and two bronze medals at the Salt Lake City Games and one gold at Nagano in 1998.

"I hope Torino 2006 will be Bulgaria's most successful Winter Olympics," said Bulgarian Olympic Committee head Stefka Kostadinova as she left for Italy on Tuesday.

The Winter Olympics include 15 sports disciplines: alpine skiing, biathlon, bobsleigh, curling, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, ice hockey, figure skating, luge, Nordic combined, speed skating, short track, skeleton, ski jumping and snowboard.

Short track

The country's star in short track, Evgenia Radanova, won three gold medals less than a month ago at the European Championships in Poland.

Six-times absolute European Champion and World Record Holder in the 500 m short track is the first Bulgarian having won two medals from the Olympic games - Bronze in the 1500 meters and Silver in the 500 from the Salt Lake City 2002 Games.

However, the competition at Turin is expected to be intense, with two Chinese and two Korean short track starlets vying for gold.

Biathlon

Ekaterina Dafovska, who won Bulgaria's first-ever Winter Olympics gold medal in the women's biathlon 15 km individual event in Nagano eight years ago, carried her country's flag at the opening ceremony on Friday.

Bulgaria's hopes for a medial at biathlon will be pursued also by Irina Nikoultchina, who won bronze in the women's biathlon 10km pursuit event at Salt Lake City, Radka Popova, Nina Kadeva and Vitali Rudencik.

Bulgaria has already set a record at Torino 2006 as its team has the shortest athlete - the 147cm high ice skater Rumiana Spasova.

Rudencik will be the first among the Bulgarians to make a start on Saturday at 20km distance.

Figure skating

On February 19 Bulgaria's best dancing couple will step out on the Olympic ice - Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski. They are World Champions of 2004 and twice European Vice Champions in 2003 and 2004 in the dancing couples. This is their third Olympics. In Nagano Denkova and Staviski were 18th and in the next games - in Salt Lake City, they moved up to the 7th place.

Turin will see also the debut of Bulgarian duo Rumiana Spassova - Stanimir Todorov. They are Bulgaria's Champions in the last two seasons. Their best international achievement is the 9th place in the European Championship in Lyons this year and the 17th place in the World Championship in Moscow, 2005.

In the men's skating events, Ivan Dinev will set foot on Olympic ice for the third time. In Nagano he was 11th and later in Salt Lake City he remained 13th.

Alpine Skiing

The most experienced Bulgarian Alpine skier Stefan Georgiev has admitted he would target at least the 15th position, after in Salt Lake City he came 16th and 22nd previously in Nagano. Turin is the third Olympics in his carrier.

Deyan Todorov will make a debut at the Olympiad in the slalom, while Mihail Sedyankov - in the slalom and combination.

Maria Kirkova, 20, will represent Bulgarian in the women's skiing events. She finished43rd in the slalom at St. Moritz, 2003, but came first in the slalom and 5th in the G-slalom at the Student's tournament in Austria a month ago. She will now have her Olympic debut in the slalom.

Snowboard

The rising star of 18-year-old Aleksandra Zhekova has the chance to reach even higher results. Zhekova won the quota in two events - the border cross and the parallel G-slalom. She believes her better chance is in the cross.

A few days before the Olympics Alexandra won 7th places in both events at the World Junior Championship in Korea.

Speed skating

Cross-country ski runner Ivan Baryakov will compete for the second time in Olympic Games. In Turin his ambition is to start in all individual events and reach a place among the top 30.

Ski jumping

In the ski jumping events Bulgaria will have two representatives - Georgi Zharkov and 16-years-old Peter Fartunov.

Luge

The last, 21st Olympic quota in Torino 2006 went to Peter Iliev, who will make his debut in the individual sleighs (luge). His best achievement so far is the 8th position in the start for the World Cup in Lake Placid in 2005.

At the Salt Lake City Games Bulgaria has recorded its best achievement in Winter Olympics so far - the 16th position in the team's list.

If winning a title in Turin every Bulgarian athlete would receive EUR 51,000, announced the State Agency for Youth and Sports.

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