“The results are very good for our federation. Hopefully the financial situation can become easier with good results in the European Youth Championship and Junior World Championship”, says Plamen Nedialkov, head coach of the Bulgarian team. Over a ten-year period Bulgaria had very good results in the senior World Ski O Championships. However Bulgaria has not featured at the top of the results for a while now, but the time for a change may come soon.

In the Youth class, Stanimir Belomazhev was incredibly fast. “It was a tough race with a lot of small scooter tracks and difficult orienteering, but I made only a few very small mistakes”, says Stanimir. He will be seventeen on February 16th. In the sprint race he took part in the junior class and impressed in several ways. First of all he took ninth place in the competition alongside athletes up to three years older than him. He also completed the whole course without anything to hold the map in. That was not the plan. “It is not the Bulgarian way”, he laughs. At the start, time was flying and he didn’t get his map holder in time, so he started with the map in his hands. That is not so easy because the hands must also hold the poles, but Stanimir managed to read the map successfully and didn’t become stressed through having to do it that way.

This big talent is from Trojan, 200 km north-east of Sofia. His mother has participated in a ski orienteering World Championships and his is an active sports family. He started skiing when he was three years old. Now he trains twice a day and has big dreams for the future. “My goal is to achieve success in the senior class”, he says.

Stanimir Belomazhev completed the sprint course without a map holder, but he managed that incredibly well.

Stanimir on his way to gold in the long distance race.

In the women’s junior class Atonia Grigorova showed a lot of strength. There is now hope for a change to better results again in Bulgaria