In the May 4 edition of the Monday Roundup, 2020 European Championships gold Edmond Nazaryan (55 kg, BUL, world #9) was briefly highlighted due to a post he shared on social media depicting Bulgarian wrestlers training outdoors. The images were notable because unlike Denmark the week prior, the Bulgarian Wrestling Federation had not publicly announced that practices held outside for athletes were approved.
And indeed, the images provided by Nazaryan might have reflected wrestling activity taking place beyond the confines of either the Bulgarian government’s guidelines or those of its national sanctioning body. 5PM did not follow up with Bulgaria for clarification.
But a mere ten days later, it is not difficult to piece the situation together. That is because on Wednesday, Bulgaria began National Team camp in the mountains of Belmeken.
32 wrestlers in total (12 for Greco, 10 for freestyle, 10 for women’s freestyle) are participating in a camp that is expected to run through the next week. In order to attend, all athletes were required to test negative for COVID-19, though according to this report, it does not say when those tests were administered. In addition, all camp attendees have their own rooms and three doctors will be on hand to provide immediate care for athletes.
Bulgaria exited the ’19 World Championships without qualifying a single weight category for the Tokyo Olympics. Their next opportunity to do so will come at the European Olympic Games Qualifier next March. The ’21 World OG Qualifier, referred to as the “Last Chance”, will actually be hosted by Bulgaria in the capital city of Sofia.
Bulgarian National Team Camp | May ’20
Greco-Roman Athletes
Edmond Nazaryan (55 kg, world #9) — ’20 European Championships gold, two-time Cadet World bronze
Ivo Angelov (60 kg) — ’13 World Champion, ’11 World bronze
Deyvid Dimitrov (67 kg)
Konstantin Stas (67 kg)
Svilen Kostadinov (67 kg)
Stoyan Kubatov (77 kg) — ’19 U23 European Championships bronze
Daniel Alexandrov (77 kg) — ’14 University World silver, multi-time European Championships medalist
Tarek Abdelslam (87 kg) ’17 European Championships gold
Svetoslav Nikolov (87 kg)
Ioan Dimitrov (87 kg)
Kiril Milov (97 kg) — ’18 World silver, ’19 European Championships silver
Radoslav Georgiev (130 kg)
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