The Bulgarian rhythmic gymnastics group will not participate at the 2020 European championships in Kyiv, Ukraine, after team member Erika Zafirova has tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The entire team traveled to a training cramp in Varna a week ago and are now quarantined for at least 10 days, the mandatory minimum in Bulgaria.
As per the Bulgarian RG federation, senior and junior individuals Katrin Taseva and Boryana Kaleyn, and Eva Brezalieva and Stilyana Nikolova are still set to participate. This decision, however, is still up in the air and can change, depending on the situation in both Bulgaria and Ukraine in the following days.
Zafirova is the 6th Bulgarian team member to test positive for COVID-19 after Tatyana Volozhanina, Valeria Vatova (both senior individual), Petya Borisova (senior group reserve), Stilyana Nikolova, and Eva Brezalieva. Volozhanina’s condition at one point worsened and she received in-hospital treatment for double bronchopneumonia. She has since tested negative and has been discharged to continue her recovery at home.
In the last week, Bulgaria has registered between 3000 and 4000 new cases daily with almost 4000 people currently in hospital.
The situation in Ukraine, which is supposed to host the championships between the 26th and the 29th of November, isn’t looking good either. International judge Lidia Vynogradna, who in September was the head judge for Deriugina Cup, took to Facebook to express her concern about the competition taking place.
She wrote, „Currently in November we NOW have more than 10 000 infections a day in Ukraine. It’s real. A lot of my friends, acquaintances got ill. I know of 3 death around me already. One of them from a relative in gymnastics community. And I can only hope that as the statistics of death is around 3% the next 97 people who would get infected – will survive.
Today I am sure that the health risk is MUCH higher.“
So far, several countries have refused to participate amid the worsening health crisis in Europe, among which are Russia, Italy, Spain, Armenia, Austria, Georgia, Portugal, Finland, and others.
ЕКСКЛУЗИВНО!!!
БЪЛГАРСКИЯТ АНСАМБЪЛ НЯМА ДА ВЗЕМЕ УЧАСТИЕ НА ЕВРОПЕЙСКОТО ПЪРВЕНСТВО В КИЕВ!
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Posted by Българска федерация художествена гимнастика – Официална страница on Monday, November 9, 2020