President Iliana Iotova will be visiting Italy on the occasion of the opening of the Winter Olympic Games and at the invitation of the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kirsty Coventry. This was announced by the press secretariat of the head of state.
At this year's Winter Games, Bulgaria will be represented by twenty athletes in the disciplines of biathlon, alpine snowboarding, alpine skiing, ski jumping, cross-country skiing and figure skating.
Iotova will be a guest at the official reception given on the occasion of the Winter Olympics by the IOC President for heads of state and the leadership of the National Olympic Committees today.
On February 6, the Bulgarian President will be received by her Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella at the Royal Palace in Milan, where a reception dedicated to the solemn opening of the Winter Olympic Games will take place. Later, Iliana Iotova will also participate in the ceremony at the “San Siro” stadium, where the games will be started and the Olympic flame lit.
During her visit, the President will visit the Olympic Village in Milan, where she will meet with Bulgarian athletes.
During her visit to Italy, the head of state will pay tribute to the bas-relief of Vasil Levski in “San Paolo” square in the city of Monza. The sculpture, created by Boris Borisov and donated by the Municipality of Karlovo to Milan last year, is the first monument to the Bulgarian revolutionary in Italy, the announcement states.
On January 20, the Executive Committee of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee (BOC) approved the composition of the Bulgarian delegation for the upcoming Winter Games in Milan-Cortina 2026. The athletes from the country won 20 quotas for the competitions in Italy from February 6 to 22, and the group includes a total of 51 people without the leaders of the delegation in the person of the Chairman of the BOC Vesela Lecheva and the General Secretary Danail Dimov.