THE national team to represent Bulgaria at the European figure skating championship from January 20 to 26 in the Swedish town of Malmo is already known. Ivan Dinev and Hristo Turlakov will represent the Bulgarian men's team, and Hristina Vassileva the women's team. Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski will represent Bulgaria in the dance pair championship.

They will leave for Sweden on January 17. Turlakov will depart from Vienna, Denkova and Staviski from Moscow, while Dinev and Vassileva will depart from Los Angeles. The varying points of departure were prompted by bad conditions for preparation in Bulgaria. For this reason, all the Bulgarian representatives have been training abroad.

The biggest hopes lie with Denkova and Staviski, who finished 2002 as leaders of the contest for the Dance Pair World Cup. It is likely that Dinev will again return to his place at the top. In 2001 he was sixth in the world, but at the Olympic games in Salt Lake City, US, he fell and suffered an injury causing him to miss the following season. Since then he has been preparing for nearly a year in the US under very good conditions and it is quite probable that in Malmo he will exhibit his great talent and ambitions. The progress of Turlakov is obvious, but he is unlikely to render any surprises.

Evgenia Karnolska, president of the Bulgarian Skating Federation, Alexander Penchev and Zoia Yordanova will be among the judges at the European Championship in Malmo.