Bulgarian snowboarder Radoslav Yankov, born in 1990 in the Rhodope town of Chepelare, was voted Bulgaria’s best athlete for December 2015 after his two wonderful victories for the Men’s World Cup parallel slalom. Yankov scored his first victory in December last year when he placed first in the parallel slalom in the Italian ski center of Carezza. In the final race he managed to overtake the current world champion Andrey Sobolev of Russia. Radoslav Yankov finished 0.05 seconds ahead of Sobolev. His second victory for the World Cup in Bad Gastein, Austria, was even more convincing. Yankov finished 1.79 seconds ahead of Italian athlete Maurizio Bormolini. Thus, Yankov headed the current World Cup ranking with a total of 2.290 points, followed by Mirko Felicetti of Italy with 1,400 points.

“I am happy that you valued my success scored at such a high level. It is an honor to receive such an award. I hope that I will continue scoring good results”, Radoslav Yankov told media and added:

“I am confident that I can win the World Snowboard Cup, because I am the current leader in the rankings. I have to take part in four more competitions. Each event is different and I do not have any specific expectations about the forthcoming contests. At the end of the sport season we will draw conclusions about my overall performance” Radoslav Yankov further told journalists.

According to Yankov’s personal coach Georgi Atanasov, the athlete’s big leap this season is due to his excellent physical condition, as well as to his personal development. “As a whole, we have been always very close to the finals, but we always lacked something to go there. This year, we made some changes in our sports equipment which gave us the impetus to place among the world’s best snowboarders”, Georgi Atanasov pointed out. More form Bulgaria’s best snowboarder Yankov:

“I am slowly approaching the peak age in our sport and our disciplines. We are usually in our best sports shape between the age of 25 and 30. I was suffering from an injury in the past, but I finally managed to overcome it, which helped me make such a big progress in my sports career in the past two years.”

What is Radoslav Yankov’s favorite discipline - the parallel giant slalom or the parallel slalom? More from Yankov himself:

“I try to be well prepared for both disciplines and I train hard for either one. I can’t say that I prefer one sports discipline to another. It all depends on the type of the contest. I always train hard for the forthcoming event, in order to be as much prepared, as possible.”

We wish Radoslav good luck for the remaining four competitions of the World Snowboard Cup which will be held until the end of March this year.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov