site.btaBulgaria Records Its Second-Most Successful Winter Olympics at Milano Cortina

Bulgarian athletes delivered the country’s second-most successful Winter Olympic performance in history by medals won at the Milano Cortina 2026 Games.

Snowboarder Tervel Zamfirov and biathlete Lora Hristova earned bronze medals. Bulgarian competitors also achieved four top-10 finishes across various disciplines.

This marks significant progress compared to the Games in Beijing in 2022, when alpine skier Albert Popov was the only Bulgarian to place in the top ten, finishing ninth in the slalom.

Twenty-year-old Zamfirov secured his place on the podium on the second day of competition, February 8, winning bronze in the parallel giant slalom in Livigno. His medal was Bulgaria’s first since the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics, when Evgenia Radanova claimed silver in the 500 metres short track event.

Three days later, 22-year-old Hristova finished third in the 15-kilometre individual biathlon race in Antholz-Anterselva.

With the two medals won, Bulgarian athletes came close to matching their best-ever Winter Olympic performance at Salt Lake City in 2002, when they stood on the podium three times.

Ekaterina Dafovska remains Bulgaria’s only Olympic champion, having triumphed in the 15 km individual biathlon event at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

Bulgaria’s first Winter Olympic medal was won by Ivan Lebanov in 1980 - a bronze in the 30 km cross-country skiing event. Irina Nikulchina also claimed bronze in the biathlon pursuit at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

Radanova remains the country’s most decorated Winter Olympian, with three short track medals: silver in the 500 m and bronze in the 1500 m at the Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, and another silver at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

Bulgaria now has a total of eight Winter Olympic medals - one gold, two silver, and five bronze.

Alpine snowboarding certainly lived up to expectations, considering the series of podium finishes by Bulgarian athletes during the World Cup season, and Zamfirov’s medal was a fully deserved reward.

Notable achievements in this sport also include the performance of 16-year-old Malena Zamfirova, Tervel Zamfirov’s sister, who earned a prestigious top-10 finish in the women’s parallel giant slalom in Livigno, placing tenth.

Bulgaria’s other alpine snowboarding ace, Radoslav Yankov, finished 13th, achieving his best result in his fourth Olympic appearance.

A pleasant surprise came from the strong performance of the Bulgarian women in biathlon, which became the country’s most successful sport at the Milano Cortina Games. In addition to her bronze medal, Hristova placed seventh in the pursuit and 11th in the sprint, while Milena Todorova narrowly missed the podium in the sprint with a fourth-place finish and placed 14th in the pursuit.

Thanks to their strong results in the individual events, both athletes qualified for the mass start in Antholz-Anterselva, which features the top 30 competitors. Until now, only Ekaterina Dafovska had competed in this event for Bulgaria, at its Olympic debut in Turin in 2006.

In the men’s biathlon, the Bulgarian athletes delivered more modest performances, but the relay team of Blagoy Todev, Vladimir Iliev, Konstantin Vasilev, and Anton Sinapov finished 12th, achieving the country’s second-best Olympic result in the event after eighth place in Calgary in 1988.

Vladimir Iliev made his fifth consecutive Winter Olympic appearance. The 38-year-old became only the second Bulgarian athlete to achieve this milestone, equaling the record of two-time world champion and short track legend Evgenia Radanova, who competed in five straight Games from Lillehammer in 1994 to Vancouver in 2010.

The experienced biathlete also served as the flag bearer for the Bulgarian delegation at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

In ski jumping, Vladimir Zografski achieved a record result for Bulgaria at the Winter Games, finishing tenth on the large hill in Predazzo.

Bulgaria was represented at the 2026 Winter Olympics by a total of 20 athletes competing in six sports.