Bulgaria wraps up Paris Olympics with three golds, seven medals total
Sofia: Bulgarian athletes won three gold medals and seven in total at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, making it the country’s best showing at the Olympics since the 2000 Games in Sydney.
The country sent 46 athletes to Paris, the majority participating in disciplines scheduled for the second week of the Games, so it came as no surprise that Bulgaria had no medals through the first 12 days of the Olympics.
After that slow start, a flurry of medals came over the next three days, with the first medal won by Semen Novikov, gold in the men’s Greco-Roman wrestling 87kg category, on August 8.
Later that day, Kimia Alizadeh won bronze in the Taekwondo women’s 57kg category, Bulgaria’s first in that sport, and Bozhidar Andreev also won bronze in the weightlifting men’s 73kg category.
The next day, two more golds followed – Karlos Nasar in the men’s weightlifting 89kg category and Magomed Ramazanov in the men’s freestyle wrestling 86kg category.
Nasar’s win was the most impressive – the 20-year-old won in his home town (he was born in Paris to a Bulgarian mother and Lebanese father), setting new world and Olympic records on his way to winning the gold medal.
Also on August 9, Boryana Kaleyn won silver in the rhythmic gymnastics individual all-around competition. On August 10, Javier Ibáñez won bronze in the boxing men’s 57kg category.
Bulgaria’s seven medals in Paris – three golds, one silver and three bronzes – is one better than the Covid-delayed Games held in Tokyo in 2021, when the country won six medals (three gold, one silver and two bronzes).
It was also Bulgaria’s best showing since the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, when its athletes won five golds, six silvers and two bronzes for 13 medals total (in Athens in 2004, Bulgaria won 12 total medals, but only two were gold).
Several of its medals were won by naturalised athletes – Ukrainian-born Novikov, Ramazanov from Russia’s Dagestan region, while Alizadeh was born in Iran and Ibáñez in Cuba.
