Background
Panova was born on May 27, 1970 in Sofia, Bulgaria.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Bianka Panova
Edit ProfileCareer
One of the Golden Girls of Bulgaria that dominated rhythmic gymnastics in the 1980s. She made a mistake in the preliminary round, dropping a club She finished in fourth place behind gold medalist Marina Lobatch (Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics), Bulgarian teammate Adriana Dunavska who took the silver medal, and Olexandra Tymoshenko (Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics).
Panova retired from competition in 1989 and became a coach in Italy.
Panova tried to make a comeback in 1992 but failed to make the Bulgarian Olympic team She returned to coaching in 1993, this time in Belgium.
She concentrated on artistic gymnastics and acrobatics choreography. She has also introduced her own method of flexibility conditioning for non-gymnast athletes.
Achievements
-
Panova is the first rhythmic gymnast to get a clean sweep of all five (All-around, Ribbon, Clubs, Hoop, Rope) gold medals at a World Championship. (The only other gymnasts to win all of the apparatus at a single World Championship are Oxana Kostina, Ekaterina Serebrianskaya and Evgenia Kanaeva) Panova also became the first rhythmic gymnast to get onto the Guinness Book of Records by her perfect performance of full 10 marks in all her routines (total of 8) at a World Championship and received the trophy personally from the President of the International Olympic Committee at that time, Juan Antonio Samaranch. She achieved this at the 1987 World Championships in Varna.
