Bulgaria's volleyball team advances to the quarterfinals at Beijing Olympics

With team captain Plamen Konstantinov back on track, Bulgaria's national volleyball team reached the quarterfinal stage of the volleyball tournament at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games after a 3:1 win against Venezuela on August 18 2008.

The start was not very promising for Bulgaria with Venezuela winning the first game (23:25). This did not augur well because a loss by the South-American side would have meant an end to Bulgaria's dreams of an Olympic medal.

Bearing this in mind Martin Stoev's boys took the initiative, hence the second game ended with a convincing win for Bulgaria (25:19). From then on it all went according to plan and the two remaining games were easily won by the Bulgarians (25:16, 25:22)

Bulgaria now has three wins and two losses on its scorecard at the Olympics and can safely wait for its quarter-final game when the team will face either Russia or Poland.

The Venezuela match was important for yet another reason for the Bulgarians. It was the first game at the Olympics for team captain Plamen Konstantinov.

Konstantinov's drama started minutes before the start of Bulgaria's first game at the Olympics against hosts China. His name was not on Stoev's starting list to the surprise of fans and media.

Later Stoev said that Konstantinov had health problems and had probably left the tournament. This uncertainty led to speculation in Bulgarian media about a possible doping scandal or conflict between Konstantinov and Stoev.

Few days later, it became clear that he had registered unusually high testosterone levels in a routine doping test just before the Olympics. This prompted a ban on him appearing in any matches, imposed by the head of Bulgaria's volleyball federation, Dancho Lazarov.

Konstantinov returned to Bulgaria to take a new test after being refused one in Beijing and on August 16 flew back to China.
In an interview for Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily Konstantinov said that his level of testosterone was indeed unusually high but it had nothing to do with doping as proved by the tests he had undergone in Bulgaria.

“I just wanted to take the tests so that I can clear my name. Since taking the test in Beijing was not possible I had to return to Bulgaria” he said.

“If we’d done the tests before the Olympics we would not have to worry about this at all,” he said.

The fact was that Konstantinov missed the first four games at the Olympics which almost costed the team its place at the quarterfinals.