Bulgaria’s hopes for medals at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games will rest on the shoulders of 18 athletes, the Bulgarian Olympic Committee said on January 27.

According to the final list of names, Bulgaria will send 43 representatives to the 21st Winter Olympic Games, which will be held on February 12–28 2010 in Vancouver. The athletes will compete in six disciplines: short track, snowboard, alpine skiing, cross country skiing, biathlon, and luge.

Of the delegation, only 18 will be athletes, with snowboarders Ivan Ranchev and Radoslav Yankoulov waiting in reserve as they too might get a ticket for the games after a relocation of unused athlete quotas.

The 18 Bulgarian hopefuls will be looked after by 15 coaches and three medics, as well as by seven officials, which will include Stefka Kostadinova, the head of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee. Bulgaria’s only Winter Olympic gold medalist Ekaterina Dafovska, who was a surprise winner in the 15km individual biathlon event during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, will travel to Vancouver as Olympic attache.

Overall, Bulgaria will spend a total of 407 000 leva on getting its delegation to the Games. As in previous Olympics, Bulgaria’s highest hopes for a place on the podium will lie with short track veteran Evgenia Radanova, (33), who has a distinguished Olympic record, with a silver and a bronze from the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City and a bronze from the 2006 Games in Torino.

Her World Cup record is even more impressive, including a total of 16 medals, including two gold and four silver. Radanova is also one of the few athletes to have taken part in both Summer and Winter Olympics, appearing in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where she was part of Bulgaria’s cycling team.

She is still considered one of the best athletes in her discipline, as evidenced by the bronze medal she won at the 2010 European Championship in Dresden. However, the ever-growing competition, especially from Chinese athletes, and Radanova’s long years spent on the ice might prove too big of a challenge for her to finally win an Olympic gold.

Other than Radanova, Bulgarian eyes will be set on alpine skiers Maria Kirkova, Stefan Georgiev and Kilian Albrecht, the Austrian who holds a Bulgarian passport, and snowboarder Alexandra Zhekova.

According to Radanova, Zhekova could be Bulgaria’s surprise at the Games, much in the same way as Dafovska was in 1998.