Listeners of the Bulgarian National Radio know well Teodor Chereshev's pleasant voice from his work as a journalist. His reports are fascinating, saturated with information and containing a delicate dose of humor, presenting us sporting events in Bulgaria and around the globe. We met him to learn firsthand some of the secrets of sports journalism, the principles and challenges of such an attractive profession.

It turned out that Teodor Chereshev did not choose sports journalism but it chose him. Everything happened by accident. After a pre-graduate work experience at the “Rabotnichesko Delo” newspaper back in the past, during which Chereshev worked on the graphic design of the newspaper, he was invited for two years in the sports office of the paper. He accepted.

"It is a curious fact that I started work on July 15, 1980, and the Olympics in Moscow started the next day. That is how I was thrown into the deep. A special team was formed for the Olympics. The last page of the newspaper was dedicated entirely to the Olympics. The work was a lot, but I got used to the hardest things," Theodor Chereshev recalls.

Working as a sports journalist attracted him with the fact that nothing is repeated in sports - each event is different and allows contact with all kinds of people from various sports. In addition, you can see the whole world during business trips! Indeed, he traveled to many countries like Australia, Canada, China, Argentina, and most importantly – he covered 9 Olympics - 6 summer ones and 3 winter.

One of his particularly exciting encounters took place during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 when he saw great boxer, Mohamed Ali, already suffering from Parkinson's, sitting in a room and managed to exchange some words with him and get an autograph. But with the profession of sports journalist, also come a number of challenges. For example, working with endless databases of past victories and defeats in various sports fields, or the stress of big events, going from one sporting event to another, commenting on various sports. How does one deal with such a challenge?

"You have no time to think. For example at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro I was alone, something that had not previously happened in the Bulgarian National Radio. Indeed, I reported on four races for a day in different parts of the city - athletics, rhythmic gymnastics, wrestling, boxing. But all the difficulties, fatigue, worries are forgotten with the emotions you experience when a Bulgarian wins a title. The excitement is huge when you see it live."

Teodor Chereshev became a part of the Bulgarian National Radio in 1997, building on the valuable professional experience gained from working in various newspapers. Most people associate sporting events with the colorful speech of sports journalists. However, if you ask Teodor Chereshev, if this type of speech was inherited or cultivated, his answer may surprise you:

"Colorful speech may mean a lot of things. I insist that one needs to speak correct Bulgarian language. Well, sometimes jargon has influence. Many people rely on improvising. But I've always said that if you work in radio or television, it's good to start with a newspaper first, in order to learn how to write, so that you can later give your text the right voice.”

And here is another hint that would help journalists attract the attention of listeners to sports news, even if they were not interested in sports:

"You need to try to report a story in an interesting way, no matter how boring it is. There are occasions when a race is extremely boring and you wonder what to say. There was a time when a colleague of mine from Naroden Sport newspaper, Vassil Krumov, not directly responsible for football, was sent for some reason to report on such a football match. The next day, the newspaper had a headline reading ‘Nothing to write on a game in which nothing happened.’ It was a genius comment but this cannot be used for live radio.”

English: Alexander Markov