2024-10-06 13:43:49
The president of the Bulgarian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation, Iliana Raeva, announced that there will be a new selection in the women’s ensemble, as four of the current graces are being abandoned after the Olympic Games in Paris.
“Four of the girls in the women’s ensemble give up. They are Margarita Vasileva, Magdalina Minevska, Kamelia Petrova and Rachel Stoyanov. Vesela Dimitrova made a new selection, only Sofia Ivanova remains. The new girls will be announced at the first control. They are currently on Belmeken. There are doubts about Rachel, who may have a chance to return,” said Raeva in the “Arena Sport” program on BNT.
She is of the opinion that there is no way back in the national team for Elvira Krasnobaeva. The president of the federation said that she was disappointed with the attitude of Grace, who will now compete for Armenia.
“This prima had a huge chance to play in the Olympic Games in Paris. What Branimira Markova said to the whole team and I to the Board of Directors of the Federation is that we made an absolute decision that if she does better competitions and qualifying to At the last moment, there were different opinions about Stiliyana Nikolova, because she showed that she was the strongest at that moment.
Between Boryana Kalein and Elvira Krasnobayeva, the battle was extremely tough. The second is 16 years old, we drastically changed the composition, she started making mistakes. We put both of them under a lot of pressure, they were very equal, but Boriana’s experience won and in Paris it was seen that we correctly allowed her in,” said Raeva.
“If Elvira’s non-participation is the reason why she refuses to compete for Bulgaria, it will be very unfortunate. It means that she has no real idea of what the great sport means and that those who are best prepared and have the great experience go to it to compete. During our camp before the games in Paris, I had reliable information that Elvira’s mother was in talks with France. After we returned from the French capital, at that very moment I had a call from the federation of Azerbaijan, with whom her mother also she had spoken and wanted to compete for her. I remained silent and indifferent because I realized what the national team means without Elvira. There is no way back for her in the national team,” she added.
Raeva appeals for a protest by the heads of sports federations in Bulgaria.
“In rhythmic gymnastics, we do not have a problem with the authority of the coaches. Until the sports people make a very serious protest about what has been happening in the last 35 years in the sport, there will be no sport. The financing of Bulgarian sports is a shame, the material base as well. The financing it’s a shame for the coaching staff, not to mention the team and so on. You can see who won medals at the last Olympics, most of them are not Bulgarian athletes that sports federations exist, something must be invented. There are no better ambassadors than the Bulgarian athletes, it must be clear. Sport is a phenomenon, it educates a lot and separates the younger generation from drugs, alcohol and everything that is harmful to development of the youth,” she stated.
Iliana Raeva also touched on the problems with the gym where the gymnasts train.
“Bulgarian rhythmic gymnastics suffers a lot from this continuous change of politicians and governments. For the sixth year now, we do not have a hall in which to train as we should. The only ones who took this very seriously were the former interior minister Kalin Stoyanov, the former sports Minister Dimitar Iliev and the architect Zdravko. We just reached an agreement to make this expansion of the national base, but the government has changed again and we are starting from scratch. What is happening in this country is a nightmare.” said the president of the BFHG and took stock of the passing year of 2024.
“I am very satisfied and happy, because I had an unfulfilled dream to see a Bulgarian individual athlete win an Olympic medal after that distant 1988, where Adriana Dunavska won a silver medal. We put a lot of effort, the whole year was very successful. Stiliyana Nikolova became the absolute European champion, Boryana Kalein and Elvira Krasnobayeva won the world cup, the girls from the ensemble also became absolute European champions. Everything went very well, once again I will say that if we did not have this bad luck that happened with Stiliyana Nikolova and the mistakes she made in Paris, she there would be no competition for the gold medal, but things didn’t turn out the way we dreamed they would. For her part, Boryana Kalein went through a very difficult Olympic cycle,” concluded Raeva.