"If we pretend not to see beyond the seven Olympic medals, then the year was super successful, incredible, extraordinary - says sports journalist Kamen Alipiev. - The truth is that in a less tolerant country, which Bulgaria has become lately, we are reaping the fruits of medals won by athletes who are not products of the Bulgarian sports school. These include two of our three gold medallists - wrestlers Semen Novikov and Magomed Ramazanov, and two of the bronze medallists - world sports icon Kimia Alizadeh and boxer Javier Ibanez.

The undisputed Athlete of the Year is heavyweight Carlos Nasar, who won his battles on more than one front, competing with a serious shoulder injury that required surgery. "Maybe I'll have to rest for a while, but I don't think I'll skip competitions," he said. "In 2025 I'll be competing in the 98 kg category, which I believe will be very competitive. I'll face new challenges, try to break new world records and meet new competitors.

In Paris, silver medallist Boryana Kaleyn told the story of her life in gymnastics in her four routines - recounting the different stages of her life, and then she retired. Now she is about to embark on a new path in life because, in her words, after every end comes a new beginning. However, she vows that one day she will return to the gym as a coach.

"This is how you build a sports culture and get back to the most important thing - getting as many people as possible to play sport," he says. - At the moment, Bulgarian sport exists despite the lack of a state policy, although there is no concerted effort to develop a long-term process. We as a society do not have long-term goals, and this is also true for sport - it relies on momentary bursts like we saw at the Olympics. It is good, however, that we had a finalist in the unofficial world junior tennis championship "Orange Bowl" in Elizara Yaneva; that we have Nikola Tsolov, who could become the first Bulgarian to compete in Formula 1; that Radoslav Yankov, after a seven-year break, has won another victory in the snowboarding World Cup. In other words, the year can be called successful in terms of results.