While Russian Olympians are doing special training in camps at isolated placed (and eating according their blood types), Bulgarian Olympians don't care too much about the results of sport science. They use almost every village feast as occasion to win some lambs or sheep, to bring them in the training camp and to eat them there.

May 24, Radoslav Velikov and Stanka Zlateva left the camp searching for fresh food. They found a possible source at a village feast.


Velikov won his matches.




Stanka won her matches vs female opponents.



Then some male spectators challenged her and got beaten.



The female heavyweight got a big heavy prize.


The lightweight got a small prize (but it had tenderer meat than the prize of Stanka).


Will they win any prizes at Beijing?

Does Bulgarian wrestling Federation have a food problem?

Seriously man... where do you come up with these pictures? they rock.

Originally Posted by Big

Does Bulgarian wrestling Federation have a food problem?

Velikov has always said he (and the other guys) likes lambs on spit only when they are absolutely fresh.
I don't think the federation would supply him (them) with live lambs, so he has to win them at folk wrestling competitions in villages and small towns.

Originally Posted by arm-spin

Seriously man... where do you come up with these pictures? they rock.

I am not joking. The pictures are from May 24, a holiday. Its the day of St. Cyrill and St. Methodius, the inventors of the Cyrillic ABC. There was a religious service before the wrestling competition.

What happened after eating the animals?

Today the Bulgarian FS & FW nationals were held.

Radoslav Velikov has obviously overeaten. He wrestled at 60 kg. He placed 3rd after losing without scoring any single point (0:2, 0:3) to Ismail Redzhep (1st at the 2006 jr. euros, 2nd at the 2007 jr. worlds) who eventually became the 2008 national champ.

Stanka Zlateva (2006 & 2007 world champ, 3x european champ and winner of the sheep last weekend) became the national champ at +72 kg without.... wrestling any single match. None of her 4 opponents dared to show up.

At 74 in the FS Mihail Ganev beat Paslar (he placed 3rd) but lost the final vs. Kiril Terziev, the guy who did a great job at the Qualifier in Martigny.

how does bulgaria pick its olympic team

There isn't any special (elaborated) and constant system.
Success at nationals and international tournaments is considered.
When 2 or more wrestlers show equal results, there are trials but unlike the US OTT, they are not public. They are held in the training camp. The format is the same: best 2 of 3 matches.

BTW, also Besik Kudukhov has overeaten. At the tourney in Sassari, Sardinia this last weekend, he wrestled at 60 kg.
In the finals he beat Saeed Azarbaijani of Canada who a month ago had beaten Sissauri to make the Olympic team.