Stoyan Deltchev

Deltchev began gymnastics when he was 10; he initially played football, and his father noticed his athleticism and decided to put him in a more individual sport.^[1] He has a daughter, Deliana.^[2]

Deltchev competed at the 1977 European Championships, where he won the gold medal in the horizontal bar final.^[1] That year, at an invitational competition in Riga, he first competed the horizontal bar move now named after him, which was the first aerial release move on the apparatus.^[3]

The following year, he competed at the 1978 World Championships, where he finished eighth in the all-around and won two bronze medals in the apparatus finals, one in pommel horse and the other with the horizontal bar, where he tied with Gennady Krysin.^[4][5]

In 1979, Deltchev won the all-around at the 1979 European Championships. He was the first man representing a country outside the Soviet Union to win the competition in fourteen years. He also competed at the 1979 World Cup, where he won bronze in the all-around as well as gold on the floor exercise.^[2]

Deltchev represented Bulgaria at the 1980 Summer Olympics, where he won the all-around bronze medal. In the event finals, he became the Olympic champion on the horizontal bar.^[2]

In an interview about his career in 2002, Deltchev reflected on how he trained many different skills that he was not able to put into his competitive routines, as he was Bulgaria's main gymnast during his career and often traveled to compete. He first succeeded with his eponymous high bar move after watching another gymnast attempt it at his gym; the gymnast's coach encouraged Deltchev to try it, and he managed to regrab the bar on his third attempt. He claimed he invented his eponymous move on the rings by accident after his grip became stuck on the rings.^[2]

After he finished competing, Deltchev went to Liverpool, England to coach for several months, before he moved to the United States in 1991.^[2] He initially worked in Napa, California,^[1] and he now owns a gymnastics school in Reno, Nevada.^[6]

In 2008, he was named to the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.^[1] In 2019, he and other Bulgarian gymnasts such as Boriana Stoyanova were recognized for their achievements at the opening of the 2019 Bulgarian championships.^[7]

Deltchev has two eponymous skills listed in the men's Code of Points, one on the rings and one on the horizontal bar:^[8]

His high bar skill, performed on the uneven bars, is also named for him in the women's Code of Points.^[9]