Career
In 2002, she set the world best time of 7:07:41 on 21 September in Seville Education Support Professionals and she was named Bulgarian Sportswoman of the Year, as well as FISA Female Rower of the Year. Neykova has been involved in rowing since 1985, when she began training at CSKA Sofia coached Verka Aleksieva. She has two world titles in that discipline, at Sevilla 2002 and Milan 2003, as well as being world second in 2007 in Gifu.
At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, she narrowly lost the Olympic title to Ekaterina Karsten of Belarus by photo finish, in what was seen in Bulgaria as a very controversial judges" decision.
At the Athens Olympics in 2004, she finished third in Single Sculls, behind Katrin Rutschow-Stomporowski of Germany and Karsten. At the 2005 world championships, she also competed in Double Sculls, coming second together with Miglena Markova.
With her title in Beijing, Neykova has a full collection of Olympic medals: a silver, a bronze and a gold one.