Alexander Nikolov is Bulgaria’s #1 athlete under 19 years of age
Volleyball won the awards in the 11th edition of Viasport.bg’s poll for the best young athletes of Bulgaria for 2022. Alexander Nikolov won the award for #1 among athletes under 19, the national team for juniors under 18, where played by his brother Simeon Nikolov, took the award for the best team, and the coach of the team Viktor Karagyozov was named #1 among youth coaches.
The awarding ceremony takes place in the Theater Hall of the private school “St. George” in Sofia with the help of the Bulgarian sports totalizer.
In the past year, 19-year-old Alexander Nikolov won with the national under-20 team, of which he is the captain, a silver medal from the Junior Olympic Festival in Slovakia, a gold medal from the Balkaniad in Albania and a bronze medal from the European Championship in Italy. Made the Eurovolley U20 Ideal Team in Italy, being named the second best receiver. Alex was also a key figure in our men’s national team, playing as a starter in the League of Nations and the European Championships in Poland and Slovenia.
Winner of a number of awards in the USA Volleyball College Championship, where he played until the end of April. He became the Western Conference Rookie of the Year and was named to her ideal team for the season.
At the beginning of July, Nikolov signed a contract with the Italian champion Kucine Lube (Civitanova), with whom he plays strongly both in the Italian championship and in the Champions League. Precisely because of his commitments in Italy, Alex was unable to attend the ceremony, but the award was presented to him by Sports Minister Vesela Lecheva to his father Vladimir Nikolov.
Alex collected 917 points in the poll of sports journalists, in which 120 media representatives participated, and points were awarded to a total of 56 athletes. He beat the second in the ranking – Stiliyana Nikolova – by 180 points. The hope of Bulgarian rhythmic gymnastics also posted a very strong year, winning silver medals for hoop, bars and ribbon, and bronze in the all-around at the women’s world championships in Sofia. He won the quota for Bulgaria for the Olympic Games in Paris, and took bronze in the all-around at the European Championship in Tel Aviv.
The award to 17-year-old Stili is presented by one of the coaches who has great merit in growing up and as a competitor – the former track and field athlete Tsvetelina Kirilova, who currently works as a conditioning coach for the Graces.
Plamena Mitkova, the world champion for girls under 20 in the long jump from the championship in Cali, Colombia, ranked third in the ranking of Viasport.bg. The talented girl from Plovdiv, a graduate of coach Ivaylo
Rusenov, collected 671 points in the poll. She received her award from our until recently elite sprinter Inna Evtimova, and among the award winners were the mountaineer Silvia Azdpreeva, the Olympic rowing champion from Montreal 76 Zdravka Yordanova, the president of the basketball federation Georgi Glushkov, the Paralympian Stella Eneva, the former national football player and now coach Ivan Ivanov, chief methodologist of the junior national teams at BFS Lachezar Dimov and others.
The winning trio received as prizes free training cards from “Pulse” gym, and the winner continued with a voucher for a weekend vacation for two at the “Five Elements” spa-hotel in Sapareva Banya.
Nikola Iliev (football), Bozhidar Saraboyukov (athletics), Martin Georgiev (football), Ivan Ivanov (tennis), Daniel Nankov (swimming), Radoslav Rosenov (boxing) and Petar Mitsin (swimming) completed the top ten.
Thus, for the first time, a representative of team sports won an award for #1 among young people, as before Alexander Nikolov it was owned by: Vladimir Zografski (2011, ski jump), Niya Dimitrova (2012, biathlon), Denis Dimitrov (2013, lightweight athletics), Blagoi Naydenov (2014, boxing), Daniel Asenov (2015, boxing), Antoni Ivanov (2016 and 2017, swimming), Alexandra Nacheva (2018, athletics) and Yosif Miladinov (2019 and 2021, swimming).