Bulgaria Makes Worst Olympic Games Performance in 60 Years

Bulgaria's performance in the 2012 London Olympics is its worst in 60 years, after the country's athletes managed to grab only two Olympic medals.

In the final ranking, Bulgaria is 63rd together with 5 other nations, thanks to the silver medal of female freestyle wrestler Stanka Zlateva and the bronze medal of boxer Tervel Pulev.

Bulgaria ranked together with Estonia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, and Taiwan, while a total of 85 countries won medals in London 2012.

The countries that are behind Bulgaria in terms of medals won from the London Olympics are Afghanistan, Bahrain, Botswana, Cyprus, Gabon, Guatemala, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Kuwait, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, and Tajikistan.

Bulgaria had a total of 63 athletes in the London Olympics compared with 72 in the 2008 Beijing Olympics where it got five medals – 1 gold, 1 silver, and 3 bronze medals, and was ultimately ranked 42nd.

Bulgaria only did worse in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics when it had 63 athletes, and won its first ever Olympic medal – a bronze medal won by boxer Boris Georgiev, and was 40th in the final ranking. In the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Bulgaria won 5 medals – 1 gold, 3 silver, and 1 bronze, and was 19th.

Regardless of the failure to win more medals in London, Bulgarian athletes have nonetheless been recognized for their results, with the Bulgarian national volleyball team making it to the 4th place, Bulgarian gymnast Yordan Yovchev making to the final for sixth consecutive Olympics in a row, the two fifth places by Bulgarian weight-lifters Ivan Markov and Milka Maneva, the eighth place of rhythmic gymnast Silvia Miteva, and the sixth place by the national rhythmic gymnastics team, and the 100 m and 200 m sprint semi-finals of Bulgarian female sprinter Ivet Lalova.