This year, the Sport in Bulgaria Foundation is a sponsor of the Bulgarian Chess Federation 2022, thanks to which our talented chess players took part in several competitions around the world and in Bulgaria. Among them are the 2023 State Individual Classical Chess Championships, children and youth tournaments, as well as Nurgül Salimova’s participation in the World Women’s Chess Team in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The National Individual Classical Chess Championships were held in the period 21-28 January, at the “Black&White” Club, Palms Royale Sofia, where 32 men and 19 women were the contenders for the title of the Bulgarian Classical Chess Champion for 2023. Nurgul Salimova, Iva Videnova-Kulyashevich, Beloslava Krasteva, Viktoria Radeva, Nadia Toncheva, Adriana Nikolova, Kiril Georgiev, Martin Petrov, Radoslav Dimitrov, Vasil Spasov, Momchil Petkov.

On the world stage, Bulgarian chess was represented by the 2019 Women’s Grandmaster – Nurgül Salimova. In the period 17-19 April, the hosts of the men’s world title match in Astana, Kazakhstan, organized an 8-board match between the Kazakhstan team and the women’s world team. The Bulgarian chess player was the only representative from Europe included in the Women’s World Team and managed to set the best performance among all participants in the match, scoring 11 out of 16 possible points.

The Sport in Bulgaria Foundation aims to support sport in the country by working in several key areas. It seeks to support professional clubs and athletes, children and youth schools and grassroots sport organisations and to promote physical activity among young people.