Iliana Raeva

At a glance

Source: Wikipedia: Iliana Raeva¹

Early career

Iliana Raycheva Raeva was born in Sofia on 15 March 1963. She grew up on the same street as fellow gymnasts Lilia Ignatova and Anelia Ralenkova. They competed for the Levski gymnastics club. Raeva began learning gymnastics under coach Zlatka Bontcheva at the Levski-Spartak club. At 15, she began training with Neshka Robeva, who had recently joined the club.¹

In March 1978, Raeva was due to fly to Poland for a tournament but fell ill and missed the flight. The plane crashed. She competed at her first European Championships that year, placing sixth. At the 1979 World Championships in London, she shared the clubs gold medal with Irina Deriugina and Daniella Boshanska, and placed fourth in the all-around competition.¹

Competition results

Raeva won her first all-around gold at the 1980 Julieta Shishmanova Cup. At the European Championships in Amsterdam that year, she took all-around gold and gold medals in rope, hoop and clubs, as well as silver in ribbon.¹

At the 1981 World Championships, Raeva won all-around silver, tying with teammate Lilia Ignatova one tenth of a point behind Anelia Ralenkova. She also won silver in hoop and ribbon and bronze in rope. At the 1982 European Championships, she placed third and won bronze in each apparatus final. Her routines included a ribbon performance to “Zorba the Greek” and a clubs routine to Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”.¹

Coaching and leadership

After retiring from competition, Raeva married Bulgarian footballer Nasko Sirakov and started her own gymnastics club, Iliana, in Bulgaria. In 1999, she became head of the Council of Coaches in the Bulgarian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. She led the Bulgarian team at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and coached the Bulgarian group that won bronze at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.¹

Raeva took over management of the federation in 2012. Under her leadership, the team won a second bronze medal and its first absolute Olympic title in the ensembles, as well as a second vice-Olympic title in the individual competition. In October 2024, she was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term as federation president.¹

She was re-elected president of the Bulgarian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation in October 2024.¹