Bulgarian Olympic swimmers Antani IvanovThe dispute between the athlete and his national federation took a new turn earlier this month when World Aquatics upheld a two-year suspension imposed on him by the Bulgarian Swimming Federation (BSF) for disrespecting the organisation.
Ivanov, who was already serving a two-year sanction until October for missing a doping test, will be ineligible to compete until March 2026. The 24-year-old butterfly specialist believes the suspension is retaliation for his public criticism of doping allegations in Bulgarian swimming.
In 2021, three young Bulgarian swimmers claimed they had been required by the federation to take medication at a national team training camp, resulting in all three testing positive for stanozolol. At the time, Ivanov told Bulgarian media that he would not train with the national team until the entire coaching staff resigned. Georgi Avramchev He currently serves as the president of BSF.
Ivanov has been an increasingly vocal critic of the BSF since his two-year ban was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last summer. He is the latest player from Bulgaria to take on the rising star Petar Mitsin He was using banned substances when he broke the world junior record in the 400m freestyle last year.
“The federation's governing body considers the allegations made by athletes from the professional swimming club Cherno More Varna to be inadmissible and defamatory. [Antani Ivanov] Junior 400m freestyle world record holder Petar Mitsin “Ivanov achieved his results using a substance that is on the World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited list in 2023,” the BSF said, adding that “Ivanov has not presented any evidence of these allegations.”
In February, Ivanov was reportedly detained for possession of less than one gram of marijuana. Last year, he told SwimSwam that Bulgaria was “full of corruption” and that he had received threats from BSF officials.
“If I stopped fighting for my rights, our federation would succeed in drugging people like they did at the European Junior Championships. But I'm fighting for my voice and my rights because Bulgaria is full of corruption and if I don't listen to them and follow them, they will do the same thing they did to me,” Ivanov said. “I received threats on my life from members of the Bulgarian Swimming Federation right before the main event at the recent national championships. They told me that if I stopped talking about corruption and how much they stole and so on, everything would be fine. But if I didn't, they said, 'A two-year suspension is not worth worrying about.' It was really scary because I was with my family, my sister and my girlfriend and it was hard to concentrate on swimming.”
Ivanov had his breakout year at the 2017 World Championships at age 17, when he broke the national record (1:55.55) in the 200 butterfly heat and became the first Bulgarian swimmer in a decade to reach a World Championship final. Later that summer, he won a bronze medal at the 2017 World Junior Championships and advanced to consecutive 200 butterfly finals at the 2018 Short Course World Championships, 2019 World Championships and 2021 Short Course World Championships. Ivanov, who will graduate from Virginia Tech in 2022, failed to make it past the heats at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, finishing 17th in 1:57.00.
