site.btaVladislav Angelov, Aleksandra Totkova Claim Top Titles at Bulgaria's State Rock Climbing Championship

Vladislav Angelov, 27, from Veliko Tarnovo, and Alexandra Totkova, 19, won the titles at Bulgaria's State Rock Climbing Championship, the Bulgarian Climbing and Mountaineering Federation said. The event was held near Lakatnik, at the Petrenski dol site. Over 40 new routes for sport climbing were made there, on the rocks near the river of the same name.

Angelov is a police officer and works as an inspector (intelligence officer) in the Criminal Police. He scored over 1,000 points with 12 routes climbed at the event. Second place went to one of the most experienced climbers in Bulgaria, Boyko Lalov with 608 points, and third place went to his long-time climbing partner Mincho Petkov with 482.

2021 Junior World Champion Nikolay Rusev, 18, took the fifth place. The reason was his chosen tactic of trying to climb the hardest route, which he managed to do, but on the second day, already out of the competition phase.

The competition in the women's category was quite strong. Alexandra Totkova, 19, who a week earlier became the European champion of the girls' event, took the first place with 558 points and 7 routes completed. For the rest of the places in the standings, however, the race was unchallenged throughout. Five girls scored over 240 points, but Julia Keremedchieva took second place with 278 points, followed by Emma Gaidarska with 257 points.

According to the organizers - the Bulgarian Climbing and Mountaineering Federation and the climbing website climbingguidebg.com, it was the largest climbing meeting to date (14th edition). Over 100 people climbed on the site, of which nearly 60 participated in the qualification for the State Championship, representatives of various clubs from across the country - Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Ruse, Stara Zagora, Veliko Tarnovo and Samokov.