Matey Kaziyski was selected as Best Male Volleyball Player while Strashimira Filipova was declared Best Female Volleyball Player of the year 2011 in the Southern European country, according to the results of the online poll conducted by BGvolleyball.com.
Currently, Bulgarian Volleyball fans associate the names of Stoychev and Kaziyski with both their distinguished Italian club TRENTINO Volley and the national team of Bulgaria. The fact that they both won their respective polls by a wide margin and adding that Tsvetan Sokolov is the runner-up in the standings for the Best Male Volleyball Player demonstrate the high value the Bulgarian Volleyball community assigns to their contribution to TRENTINO’s fantastic year as champions of Italy, Europe and the world.
Filipova is the new captain of the women’s national team and is viewed by the fans as the most stable player in what was otherwise a pretty shaky year for the “Lionesses”. The middle-blocker of Russian Uralochka-NTMK EKATERINBURG led Bulgaria onto the top of the Olympic pre-qualification tournament in Baku and put the future of the country’s women’s Volleyball in a better perspective.
In each category BGvolleyball.com nominated seven people with remarkable achievements in 2011. 2’646 unique votes were cast for Best Coach, 2’548 for Best Female Player and 3’427 for Best Male Player. The final results shaped up the following ranking
Coach
1. Radostin Stoychev (TRENTINO Volley*, Bulgaria Men’s NT) – 62.81%
2. Aleksandar Popov (CSKA SOFIA – Men) – 13.49%
3. Miroslav Zhivkov (Bulgaria Youth Men’s NT, Pirin Balkanstroy RAZLOG) – 7.63%
4. Atanas Lazarov (CSKA SOFIA, Junior and Youth Women) – 5.14%
5. Viktor Karagyozov (Bulgaria Youth Men’s NT) – 4.88%
6. Yuliya Ivanova (CSKA SOFIA – Women) – 4.46%
7. Dragutin Baltic (Bulgaria Women’s NT) – 1.59%
Female:
1. Strashimira Filipova (Bulgaria NT, Uralochka-NTMK EKATERINBURG) – 35.28%
2. Elitsa Vasileva (Norda Foppapedretti BERGAMO, Bulgaria NT) – 29.04%
3. Dobriana Rabadzhieva (Rabita BAKU, Bulgaria NT) – 12.87%
4. Mariya Karakasheva (CSKA SOFIA, Bulgaria NT) – 8.71%
5. Aneliya Todorova (Azerrail BAKU) – 6.04%
6. Diana Nenova (Rabita BAKU, Bulgaria NT) – 5.93%
7. Iliyana Petkova (Azerrail BAKU) – 2.12%
Male:
1. Matey Kaziyski (TRENTINO Volley, Bulgaria NT) – 48.64%
2. Tsvetan Sokolov (TRENTINO Volley, Bulgaria NT) – 19.64%
3. Teodor Todorov (Bulgaria NT, CSKA SOFIA) – 8.43%
4. Petar Nenkov (Bulgaria Youth NT, Pirin Balkanstroy RAZLOG) – 7.94%
5. Vladimir Nikolov (Bre Banca Lannutti CUNEO, Bulgaria NT) – 7.82%
6. Nikolay Ivanov (CSKA SOFIA) – 5.72%
7. Ivaylo Stefanov (CSKA SOFIA) – 1.81%