Спорт

"It is a great pride that a small town like Velingrad can prepare two swimming teams to represent Bulgaria at the World Swimming Cup." Cyril and Methodius" Maria Polezhanska. Together with the director of SOU "V. Levski” Emil Mollov they are rightfully proud that students from two schools in Velingrad will defend the honor of the Bulgarian swimming school on a world level. This was made possible after two consecutive years of our swimmers winning national student competitions. It happened that some of the swimmers who won the right to participate in Palma de Mallorca could not compete there because they were already in an upper age group. But one of the merits of having a Velingrad swimming school is that there is continuity and there is someone to continue what has been started. The organization for participation in the big competition brought out another one of the many Bulgarian paradoxes. The Ministry of Education organizes the student competitions, but does not provide any funding for the winners to participate in the final - the World Cup. Along with this ministry are a bunch of government and non-governmental associations, by statute and in words supporting the school sport, but they also deal with everything else, only not with real financial assistance for the school teams that will represent Bulgaria to the world. The municipality helped to pay the initial fees, parental assistance has been for years and is huge, the largest share of the amount was collected through the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Great are the thanks of the children and their parents to our fellow citizen Lydia Shuleva, who assisted in granting the amount to Minister Vasil Ivanov-Lucano. It takes at least one more effort to raise funds for the worthy performance of our team: for the purchase of clothing that will give self-confidence to the children and for a proper advertisement of the resort of Velingrad. Now is the time to be local patriots not only in words and really help the swimmers succeed! Qualifying them for this major competition is an achievement in itself. Let's help them leave with the confidence that Velingrad really supports them!