Bulgaria (BUL)

Five Bulgarian athletes went to Athens for the 1896 Olympic Games, but due to a misunderstanding over the use of the Gregorian and the Julian Calendars, they arrived too late to compete. However, a Swiss national in 1896, Charles Champaud, worked in Sofia and is considered the first Bulgarian Olympian. It was not until 1923 that a National Olympic Committee (NOC) was formed and International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognition followed in the next year. Bulgaria first competed at the Olympic Games in 1924, and it has since missed only the Olympic Games of 1932, 1948, and 1984. Its first appearance in the Olympic Winter Games was in 1936 and it has competed at all celebrations since. Bulgaria has had its greatest successes in strength sports, mainly weightlifting and wrestling, and in the 1980s it was the premier nation in the world in weightlifting. Through 2016, Bulgarian athletes have won 224 Olympic medals, 52 of them gold, of which six medals, one of them in gold, have come at the Winter Olympics. A female shooter, Mariya Grozdeva, has won the most Olympic medals for Bulgaria, with five in all, and two golds.

In 1974 the Olympic Committee of Bulgaria was awarded with the Olympic Cup.