site.btaFrom Varna to Hollywood: How Bulgarian Skydiving Champion Became Sylvester Stallone’s Stunt Double

From the extended youth national football team through the national parachuting title to being Sylvester Stallone’s stunt double. In an interview with the Bulgarian News Agency, Ivo Karakashev talked about the journey from Varna to Hollywood, what makes skydiving one of the safest extreme sports, how much riskier it is to fly a wingsuit, and what led to the October 2024 incident near Botevgrad in which a man lost his life while skydiving from a hot air balloon and another was severely injured. 

This story begins two generations ago. Ivo's grandfather, Ivan Karakashev, is one of the pioneers of Bulgarian parachuting, awarded Merited Master of Sport for his achievements. "He is the most outstanding parachutist in the family. There were no world championships back then, but he finished third in a competition in which everyone except the U.S. participated. He tested parachute models and later led men's and women's national parachuting teams."

How his parents first met? On the national parachuting team. Following routine etiquette, his father lent a hand to the next skydiver boarding the plane - his mother.

Despite this background, Ivo initially showed no desire to pursue the family craft. Most of his parents' friends are their former national teammates and Ivo associated skydiving with their generation. His first tandem jump didn't come until his 15th birthday – an exciting event but one he faced with no intentions to turn into a hobby. After the jump, his mother offered to sign him up for a course so he could start jumping on his own. He refused:  “What am I going to do in a place with adults only," he said.

He practiced a number of sports before falling in love with football and developing dreams of a professional career. He made it to the extended youth national squad and was even offered a professional contract in the second tier of Bulgarian football, but when he joined his new team, he was faced with a reality in which teammates were smoking in the locker room, were rude to a newcomer and there was little professionalism. He never signed.

With the ball out of the picture, the parachute opened. 

"Freefall is the purest form of meditation for me. Everything suddenly becomes extremely quiet, time seems to stop, there are no distractions – you are not thinking about everyday problems, you are just present. Everything is super intense, but also super peaceful because you know what you are doing and you are in an abstract isolated environment."

One of the Safest Extreme Sports

"I remember feeling quite stressed before my first jump. On the way there I was asking what the chances were of my parachute not opening. The normal questions," said Karakashev. From his current perspective, however, he describes parachuting as one of the safest extreme sports.

In 2024, out of more than 8 million jumps worldwide, there were 25 deaths, 19 of which came after human error with the parachute already open, not equipment problems.

Skydivers jump with two parachutes so that if there are problems with the main one a spare can be opened. Cases of double malfunction are almost non-existent. 

"The first parachute opens at 1,000 meters. Even if there is a problem and it does not open fully, it still slows the fall - you are not falling at 200 km/h anymore, you are slowing down to at least 100 km/h. There are at least 10 seconds before you reach an altitude of 500 meters to decide if you can fix the problem without removing the parachute. Some common malfunctions are easily solvable. If there is a more significant issue, you remove the parachute one and open the spare. There is a third passive safety. If you accidentally become unconscious or for whatever reason lose control of your body, at 300 meters a device automatically opens your reserve parachute, which turns itself into the wind." 

Everything is calculated by the manufacturers so that even if you fall unconscious and have to rely on the passive safety, you will be alive after landing. If you are conscious, 300 meters is enough to land normally.

In 2023 Karakashev became national champion and vice-champion of Eastern Europe. 

"I have always dreamed of becoming champion so I can show my parents that I am not that bad," he says with a smile. "I am extremely happy with this achievement, even though it is not something amazing. Actually the bigger achievement is that I came second for Eastern Europe as my competitors in the top 3 had 25,000 jumps and 20,000 jumps behind them with over 40 years in professional sport as skydivers."

Competitors jump from an altitude of 1,000 metres aiming to land as close as possible to a target the size of a coin enclosed in a 20-metre circle.

October 2024 Incident

On October 23, 2024, two parachutists jumped from a hot air balloon near Botevgrad, with one dying and the other suffering severe injury that damaged his spine.

The incident received much media and political attention, and the owner of the balloon was charged with inadvertently causing death and bodily harm while operating it without documents, without registration and a certificate of airworthiness, and with no pilot's license, in violation of the Civil Aviation Act. He was later released on bail. 

"Hot air ballooning is the safest air transport of all time. It has the fewest accidents. The pilot of the balloon had no fault - he just got them where they wanted," Karakashev explained. 

"The process of legalizing balloons is slow because they are a special mode of transport. Whether a balloon is licensed or not has no direct bearing on whether an accident will happen. It would be more dangerous if it is not inspected to see if it is airworthy - if the fabrics and materials themselves are in good condition.”

“The paperwork for this balloon from which the accident happened was submitted for licensing two years ago, it has been inspected, but it has not yet been licensed. "

Following the accident a fundraising campaign with a total of 1,331 participants managed to raise EUR 57,118 to get survivor Georgi Peltekov the necessary therapy abroad. He is currently treated in the best spinal injury clinic in Turkiye. 

"He has made a lot of progress and is now moving almost 100% self-sufficient. I hope he will return to normal life as soon as possible," Karakashev added. 

Ivo said the accident happened because the two got caught up in the euphoria of flying. They removed the automatic safety measure to prevent a double malfunction in case they decided to open their first parachute at a low altitude.

Competitive Parachuting in Bulgaria: Great Traditions, Abandoned by State

Karashakev says that before the Bulgarian political reforms in 1989 there were 29 parachuting clubs, each positioned near a large regional town. Everything was free and supported by the state.

 "Before 1989 Bulgaria was highly developed in parachuting, aeromodelling, gliding, acrobatic planes. After the changes, funding stopped because these are extremely expensive sports that require fuel, material, mechanics... The State decided that these were unnecessary resources and only military parachuting remained. Professional athletes joined the military because they had no other choice."

Currently there are only 4 drop zones in Bulgaria but with mainly commercial purposes - tandem jumping for enthusiasts. The only remaining competition center is in Montana, where Karakashev also practices his competitive jumps. 

"Bulgarian teams were extremely competitive and always in the top five positions. Nowadays there is no support from the State and they rely on sponsors or self-funding. However, Bulgaria still participates in World and European Cup... There are national teams made up of individuals who are supported by sponsors or funding themselves. The women's team that my mother participated in is the most titled in recent years. Sky Roses were in the top 3 of the world rankings – that is our national team, but it has a different name because it is privately funded."

Wingsuit: Skydiving’s Dangerous Branch

As someone who strives to continue to develop in everything he does, in 2021 Ivo Karakashev took a windsuit course in Spain with one of the world's renowned jumpers in this discipline.

What is a wingsuit: "A device that converts vertical speed into horizontal speed. Instead of falling at 200 km/h towards the ground, the skydiver starts falling at 120, but his horizontal speed increases in direct proportion. It reaches up to 1 to 3 glide - in a 1,000 meter dive you travel 3 kilometers forward. It extends the limits of what is possible in air travel. Without it, the human body inevitably reaches parachute opening height at the 60-second mark. The suit gives the body extra surface area. There are inlets through which the airflow enters and the suit turns into something similar to an air mattress. You go from an object that just falls to a wing that is much more aerodynamic," Karakashev explained.

Each minimal movement has a much greater effect, requiring greater concentration. In order to jump with a wingsuit, you need to have 200 parachute jumps and one hour of freefall. 

While skydiving in general is among the safest extreme sports, wingsuit basejumping, in which you don't jump from a plane but from cliffs and other objects, is the most extreme sport in the world and produces the most casualties per year.

Karakashev's first jump off a cliff came in 2024. "To get to the point of even thinking about jumping off a cliff, you have to go quite a long way. A lot of people see the end result on social media as the icing on the cake, but there are years of preparation behind it so that when you stand on the edge of an object, you feel you are in the right place and know that your skills and judgement are in no way influenced by your ego." 

"The bravest thing an extreme athlete can do is make the decision to turn back. That has happened to me more than once. If everything around you is telling you that this is not the time to do something, it is much braver to turn around and come back in a month or a year. If you skip over the factors you see and you are driven by your ego, you can find yourself in an extremely uncomfortable environment fighting for your life."

The Stunt Man

Years of practice in extreme sports have brought Ivo Karakashev into contact with people, who opened the doors of the movie industry for him. "It never crossed my mind that this could ever happen. The years in the sport and the skills I have gained have given me the opportunity to create film scenes with ease, with friends, to feel satisfied with the creative process and at the same time do the things I love, which is important to me."

A friend, Ilko Iliev, recommended him to Nu Boyana Film Studios as an aerial expert for a parachute scene. "My role was to train the actor, but the stunt coordinator saw me and offered me a place on his team."

Karakashev underlined that Bulgaria has stunt performers of the highest calibre.

"In stunt circles there are a lot of accomplished fighters, acrobats - things I am not that good at, but when you are put in an environment with so many gifted people who are willing to help you, you inevitably get better. That continues to be a process I follow. I am extremely grateful to everyone who has reached out and shown me something of their sport." 

He said that a good stuntman has to have many different qualities. “The leading thing in stunt films is fighting, so any martial art is welcome. Acrobatic skills can help you a lot for spectacular falls, tosses, flips. There is also heavily profiled stuff like rope work, which is closest to climbing, and equipment work – that is where extreme sports help me a lot, as there are a lot of ropes in skydiving."

If there's a skydiving scene in a commercial or movie, he and Ilko Iliev are the first people they look for. "We are the only stuntmen in Bulgaria who do this," he said.

In 2024 Iliev and Karakashev shot all the aerial footage for a Defence Ministry commercial, and this year he was a Skydiving Camera Operator in a Netflix commercial. 

"Slowly, from just a hobby, things started to look much more serious. I got into some pretty well-known films. I have been shooting in Hollywood, Bollywood. Unfortunately, I have not done a Bulgarian film yet as here we don't have very big budgets and stunts in cinema are expensive."

The biggest film he has acted in so far is The Expendables 4, where Karakashev is Sylvester Stallone’s stunt double and Iliev is 50 Cent’s during a plane jump. “We were their doubles in all the aerial scenes, and actually in the closing scene, I am in Stallone's place." 

They wear masks that mimic the faces of the actors, or are disguised so that the viewer would not notice the difference. The team is international: "We brought together the best people who could do the job."

The last film he was involved with was Marked Men, which came out at the end of February. He also has a role as an actor there. Ice Fall is still upcoming.

"The main thing we do with stunts is risk management. The main goal is to make the scene safe to shoot and most sparing to the actor and the stuntman. Aside from the creative process, which is unavoidable - coming up with choreography - we spend a lot of our time at work figuring out what's the safest way to do something so spectacular, but at the same time leave no one in danger at any point."

The stunt team is assembled by a stunt coordinator hired for the specific scene. 

"There are several teams, under the umbrella of different coordinators - renowned local stuntmen who have been around for years and are well connected worldwide. We don't shoot in Bulgaria and Boyana only. I have worked in England, France, Czechia and Romania. The stunt team moves to the location of the film and the coordinator determines who is best for which scene.”

Amid all this, Karakashev still has another full time job: financial analyst at IBM. "Contrary to my social media image of an athlete, I spend a lot of time in front of the computer staring at thousands of millions of dollars."