World ice dance champions Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviski were given athletes of the month award in Bulgaria.

Denkova and Staviski got the award for the eighth time in their career, BGNES Sports agency reported.

Young tennis competitor Grigor Dimitrov received the second award. The same number of votes granted short track competitor Evgenia Radanova and badminton competitor Petya Nedelcheva the third place.

Recently Denkova and Staviski won bronze medals from the European championship in Warsaw. Denkova said that better performance was expected in the world championship in Tokyo.

A number of commenters said that the third place could not be explained and the Bulgarian ice dancers deserved better marks.

Denkova and Staviski are the first Bulgarian figure skaters to become world champions and to get medals from Olympic and European competitions, the report said.