From BGVolleyball.com:
Radostin Stoychev, Tsvetan Sokolov and Elitsa Vasileva voted Bulgaria’s best for 2012
Radostin Stoychev is Bulgaria′s Best Volleyball Coach of 2012 for a third consecutive year. Tsvetan Sokolov was selected as Best Male Volleyball Player, while Elitsa Vasileva was declared Best Female Volleyball Player of the year in the Southern European country, according to the results of the prestigious online poll conducted by BGvolleyball.com.
Eli Vasileva had a major contribution to what is viewed as a good year for the Bulgarian national women’s team as the Lionesses earned silver from the 2012 CEV Volleyball European League, thus making it to the prestigious FIVB World Grand Prix competition for the first time ever. Vasileva headed home from the European League Final Round in Karlovy Vary with two individual awards hanging from her belt – for Best Scorer and Best Spiker.
In addition, she won the Italian Super Cup with her former team Norda Foppapedretti BERGAMO in 2012.
Tsetso Sokolov, the young Bulgarian international and one of the FIVB Heroes, has obviously charmed the volleyball fans in his country into becoming their new favorite star as they gave him nearly 40% of the vote. Besides his major role in the national team as the Lions earned 4th place in both the London Olympics and the 2012 FIVB Volleyball World League, Sokolov’s part in the world’s most distinguished club TRENTINO Volley from Italy was also highly valued by the country’s volleyball community which takes national pride in the Bulgarian contribution to Trentino’s great domestic and international success.
No wonder another Trentino player, last year’s poll winner Matey Kaziyski, is now the first runner-up for 2012.
Furthermore, Trentino’s mentor Radostin Stoychev took almost half of the votes to prove that he still has his place in the hearts of Bulgarian volleyball lovers despite quitting the national team before the Olympics over a row with the national federation. Besides successfully guiding the Lions through the Olympic qualification process, in 2012 Stoychev led his club team to a fourth consecutive world title, CEV Volleyball Champions League bronze, Italian national championship silver and two Italian national cups.
In each category BGvolleyball.com nominated seven people with remarkable achievements in 2012. 3156 unique votes were cast for Best Coach, 2971 for Best Female Player and 4120 for Best Male Player. The final results shaped up the following ranking:
Coach:
1. Radostin Stoychev (Trentino Volley – Men*, Bulgaria Men’s NT) – 49.49%
2. Nayden Naydenov (Bulgaria Men’s NT, Marek Union-Ivkoni Dupnitsa – Men) –
19.93%
3. Marcello Abbondanza (Bulgaria Women’s NT) – 9.25%
4. Georgi Petrov (Levski Volley Sofia – Men, Bulgaria Men’s NT) – 8.46%
5. Yuliya Ivanova (CSKA Sofia – Women) – 6.08%
6. Ivan Petkov (Maritsa Plovdiv – Women, Bulgaria Women’s NT) – 3.80%
7. Dragan Nesic (Galatasaray Istanbul – Women) – 2.98%
Female:
1. Elitsa Vasileva (Bulgaria NT, Norda Foppapedretti Bergamo) – 30.93%
2. Strashimira Filipova (Bulgaria NT, Uralochka-NTMK Yekaterinburg) – 24.03%
3. Eva Yaneva (Dinamo Moscow, Bulgaria NT) – 19.69%
4. Dobriana Rabadzhieva (Rabita Baku, Bulgaria NT) – 10.64%
5. Diana Nenova (Lokomotiv Baku, Bulgaria NT) – 8.28%
6. Kremena Kamenova (Lokomotiv Baku) – 4.14%
7. Mariya Filipova (Lokomotiv Baku, Bulgaria NT) – 2.29%
Male:
1. Tsvetan Sokolov (Trentino Volley, Bulgaria NT) – 39.56%
2. Matey Kaziyski (Trentino Volley, Bulgaria NT) – 31.24%
3. Georgi Bratoev (Bulgaria NT, Levski Volley Sofia) – 8.96%
4. Todor Aleksiev (Bulgaria NT) – 8.52%
5. Neven Neshev (Beach Volleyball, Arda Kurdzhali) – 7.43%
6. Valentin Dimov (Beach Volleyball) – 2.86%
7. Nikolay Uchikov (Trentino Volley) – 1.43%
* Teams shown are the ones with which remarkable results were achieved in 2012 and
are not necessarily current.