The bronze medalist with the Bulgarian group from the Rio Olympics, the gymnast who took the place of Tsvetelina Stoyanova, has announced her retirement. Lubomira has explained that she competed with an ankle injury which did not heal properly and that she is finding it very difficult and dangerous from a health perspective to continue with a competitive career.
Lubomira also feels that she "does not fit well" in the new group after he distinguished colleagues, world champions Mihaela Maevska, Reneta Kamberova, Hristiana Todorova and Tsvetelina Naidenova also retired.
Lubomira's retirement, according to some, marks a new page in the development of the Bulgarian team, as a brand new team will follow into the steps of the former Olympic bronze medalists.
Some fans feel that the national team coaches and the federation should have taken better care of Lubomira in terms of allowing her to compete with what appears to be a serious injury.
Still other have commented that the ankle problem is not the actual reason behind the retirement decision so much as the fact that Lubomira really felt a sense of belonging to the old team and would simply like to move on to new ventures now that everyone else on the team has left. While Lubomira has fulfilled her Olympic dream and played a pivotal role for the team as a whole after the Stoyanova incident, perhaps her retirement is a wise decision to end her career on the most positive note. Lubomira retires as a true hero, and all fans will remember her as taking the team to the medals both at the European Championship and at the Olympics.
While Lubomira will be very much missed, I am also hopeful that the new team will take an even better approach towards preparing for the next season especially in terms of the choreography and originality of their routines as well as their general conditioning and ballet training. We have yet to see whether the Bulgarian team will also undergo substantial coaching changes.
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