Ivanka Koleva

Koleva took up para-sport in Stara Zagora in 1985 out of curiosity.^[2] In 1994 she represented Bulgaria at the 1994 IPC Athletics World Championships in Berlin, winning gold in the discus throw and bronze in the javelin.^[2] She followed this with further success in the 1998 World Championships in Birmingham, when she took silver in the shot put.^[2]

She competed in her first Summer Paralympic Games in 2000 in Sydney. There she entered the discus throw (F58) and the shot put (F57), taking the gold medal in the latter with a distance of 7.85.^[2] She would go on to represent her country at the following three Summer Paralympics, but despite entering another nine events, all in field athletics, she failed to repeat the success of her first games. Her best result after 2000 were two sixth places in the 2004 and 2008 games in the shot put, but after Sydney her event was merged with other classification athletes on a points basis, greatly widening the field of competition.^[2] At the 2008 Games Koleva also entered the powerlifting tournament in the 67.5 kg event, but failed to complete a successful lift.

Koleva has competed at every IPC World Championship from 1994 to 2015, and in 2016 she entered the 2016 European Games in Grosseto. In the F57 shot put she threw a season's best of 8.50 to take her first major international gold medal for 16 years.

• Ivanka Koleva at the International Paralympic Committee
• Ivanka Koleva at IPC.InfostradaSports.com (archived)