site.btaBTA Director General Opens Balkan Athlete of the Year Ceremony

Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev opened the award ceremony for the Agency’s Balkan Athlete of the Year on Monday, announcing the results of the 2025 poll and welcoming all guests at BTA’s National Press Club in Sofia.

Romanian swimmer David Popovici was named the winner, with Serbian basketball player Nikola Jokic and weightlifter Carlos Nasar, who received BTA’s special prize for Bulgarian Balkan Athlete, completing the top three.

The annual poll involves national agencies from across the region, including BTA (Bulgaria), ANA-MPA (Greece), AGERPRES (Romania), Anadolu Agency (Turkiye), TANYUG (Serbia), MINA (Montenegro), MIA (North Macedonia), HINA (Croatia), FENA (Bosnia and Herzegovina), CNA (Cyprus), ATA (Albania), and KosovaPress (Kosovo).

“Today, on BTA’s 128th anniversary, we are announcing the Balkan Athlete in the 52nd edition of the ranking. The first edition was in 1973, the year I was born and the year Mr. Serdar Karagoz, head of Anadolu Agency, was also born. Each year, a colleague from one of the 12 participating agencies joins us for the announcement. This is a competition where all 12 countries are always winners because people in our region, in Southeast Europe, are so close and connected that ‘Balkan’ is the word we use for what we share. This year, the top 10 includes three athletes from Greece, two from Bulgaria, and one each from Serbia, Romania, Turkiye, Kosovo, and Croatia,” Valchev said, adding that the award will now be presented annually on February 16.

“From now on, we will strive to present the Balkan Athlete award every February 16, BTA’s founding day. We also updated our written rules today, including our Ethics Code, to explicitly set guidelines for using artificial intelligence. The rules are simple: a journalist must always be involved at the start and end of any AI-assisted work, asking questions accurately and verifying answers before publication. But there is one clear area where AI can never intervene - and that is sports. The winner will always be a living person,” he commented.

Valchev also highlighted BTA’s expanding regional presence: “Finally, I am pleased to announce that BTA now has National Press Clubs with permanent correspondents in all neighboring countries. After Skopje, Bucharest, Ankara, and Belgrade, we officially opened a National Press Club in Athens on Saturday, on the day of St. Constantine Cyril the Philosopher.”