Bulgarian swimmer Nina Rangelova, who trains in the United States at SMU, is the country’s biggest active swimming star, and for the first time since 2010 she has returned home to contest her country’s long course National Championship meet this week in Sofia.
While Rangelova is best known as a freestyler (she’s the National Record holder in every distance 50-400), she skipped the 400 free on the meet’s first day this year. Instead, she raced the women’s 50 fly, where she came away with a win in 27.71 and a new National Record.
The old record, in fact, was done four years ago to the day, the last time Rangelova swam this meet, with a 27.71. She beat out 17-year old Anna Dolganna (28.68) and 15-year old Georgiya Kadoglu (29.61), who one day could wind up with this record themselves.
Rangelova also anchored the winning Mladost 400 free relay with a 55.78, as they swam a combined 4:02.29 to win by nearly five seconds.
Rangelova’s was the only record on the first day, but there were a handful of other interesting swims:
- Martin Zhelev won the men’s 100 back in 56.67, including a great first 50 split of 27.32.
- Lachezar Shumkov won the men’s 100 breaststroke in 1:02.98.
- Antani Ivanov won the men’s 50 fly in 25.61, just out-touching Bojidar Stoev (25.70) and Tsanko Tsankov (25.90). Ivanov is only 15 years old.
- Damini Lv almost broke the National Record in the men’s 400 free relay with a 3:32.65. It missed the mark for club relays by just four-tenths of a second, and included a 51.3 leadoff from Zhelev.
