The coach of the women's national wrestling team, Miroslav Gochev, announced his resignation. After the 62 kg final, which Bilyana Dudova won and took a bronze medal at the European Championships in Bratislava, he said that he learned from an interview with the new president of the federation, Stanka Zlateva, that he would be replaced due to a difference in concepts. The same will happen with the team's leader in freestyle, Valentin Angelov, BTA reports.
"Since things started (with the election of a new president - editor's note), no one has called me. The only person who called me was Kiril Vatev (vice president of the federation) before the conference and asked me how things were going. No one else has called me. I have decided to step down because I cannot be the one to tell the truth about things that are happening around me. Apparently, our concepts are different and I found this out from an interview with Ms. Stanka Zlateva," he concluded.
Dudova added that the athletes and coaches do not have official information from the federation about the upcoming changes.
"I have no information whatsoever. I learn things from the media, which is not right for me. It is not respectful for us not to know what is happening. It was very difficult to come back after the Olympics, I also had surgery, but we started working with the coaches little by little. If we want to beat Japan, Russia, etc., we have to be a team, train, be calm and move forward. I have been going alone so far, at the Olympics my coach did not have the opportunity to sit in the chair, we did not have a masseur, we wondered what to do. It's a shame, because what happened now should have happened after the Olympics, at the beginning of the new Olympic cycle, and not before a competition. This also affected me, because we don't know if we will have a camp, with which coach we will be... I hope we can find an understanding and see who we will train with. We have already understood that Stanka Zlateva is the president of the federation. She is an idol in women's wrestling all over the world. My respects to everyone, we have talks to do when we get home and I hope things move forward. We need to win medals, not demotivate ourselves", said Dudova.
"I'm not happy, to be honest. I'm glad that I won a medal, because with my coaches we are preparing for the European Championship in December. My goal was to win a fifth title for Bulgaria and for myself, but it wasn't my day. I'm glad that I managed to pull myself together and reach the podium. The last few years have been difficult for me, I haven't won any medals and it's been hard for me. I'm ambitious to always win. I'm grateful to the coaches and the girls on the team. I hope to set a good example for them, because I'm already the most experienced one," said Dudova after the 62 kg final.