site.btaUPDATED President Addresses Annual Natural Sciences Olympic Teams Meeting

"Your medals unite us as a nation, give us hope that we can and will be a modern European country, a country that stands on equal footing with others, a country that can lead with knowledge and ideas," President Rumen Radev said in his welcoming speech at the seventh annual meeting of the Bulgarian natural sciences Olympic teams. The event was held on Monday at the National Archeological Institute with Museum to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. 

He noted that it is a great pleasure for him to resume the tradition of the annual meeting of the Bulgarian Olympic Natural Sciences Teams to strengthen the conviction that consistency, discipline, purposefulness are key factors for the development of education and for Bulgaria's prosperity. 

He expressed his gratitude to the Olympic teams for for continuing to promote Bulgaria on a global scale in important, fundamental sciences, for proving the country's enormous potential in disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, astrophysics, linguistics.

The Head of State thanked the teachers who, in his words, are the basis of the students' success and have ignited the spark for them to be engaged in learning. These are hundreds of medals from international Olympiads and competitions for generations and congratulations to those people behind the stage, engaged in your selection and preparation, not always under the best conditions, not always with resources, always with much less resources than the world giants who are competing, Radev pointed out. He noted that young talents struggle and achieve success with much less resources and compete successfully with countries like the US, China, Russia, Germany, Japan. 

Bulgarian education, training and supporting talents should and will be an important national priority, Radev was adamant. In his words, all state institutions will continue to invest in young people, because they are the most important investment for the future, "for Bulgaria to be prosperous, with a strong economy, with strong institutions, a country that looks boldly ahead to a new, increasingly dynamic and high-tech future." 

In 2023, Bulgarian Natural Science Olympic Teams athletes won 90 medals - 17 gold, 32 silver and 41 bronze at international, European and Balkan Olympiads and competitions.