At the Melbourne Olympics, Nikola Stanchev became Bulgaria’s first Olympic champion, for which he was later called the “Yuri Gagarin of Bulgarian sports”. Stanchev hailed from the isolated village of Tvarditsa, and he was said to be the first villager to leave for the capital Sofia. Apart from his Olympic title, his international results were modest. In 1959, he won gold at the Balkan Games, and he placed 4th at the 1957 World Championships. He was also an 11-time Bulgarian champion, eight times in freestyle, and three in Greco-Roman. Ending his career before the Rome Olympics, he became assistant-coach for the Bulgarian national wrestling team for a few years.
Bulgaria