Olympic shooting medalist Vesela Lecheva was elected on Bulgarian Olympic Committee President on Wednesday after a secret ballot. She bested world high jump champion Stefka Kostadinova, the previous BOC head, by 48:33 votes.

A total of 83 delegates at the Bulgarian Olympic Committee General Assembly voted, while Ivan Lebanov, Georgi Gergov and Valentin Yordanov were not present, the election commission said. However, two of the votes were invalid. Representatives of 47 sports federations, seven sports organizations and 29 individual members took part in the vote.

In the speeches of the presidential candidates to the delegates, Kostadinova underlined the successes achieved by Bulgarian athletes at the recent Olympic Games in Tokyo and Paris, while Lecheva stressed the need for changes so that Bulgarian sport does not lag behind the latest global trends.

At the beginning of the forum the delegates observed a minute of silence in memory of the recently deceased two-time Olympic weightlifting champion Norair Nurikian, sports journalist Petar Vasilev and the victims of the fire in Kocani in the Republic of North Macedonia.