On October 30, 1983, the Budapest Sports Palace erupted as a Bulgarian gymnast in a red leotard stuck her first vault with textbook control. She shuffled back on her second vault, but her score was good enough. For the first time at a women’s World Championships, the Bulgarian anthem—Mila Rodino—played in the arena. Boriana Stoyanova had become the first Bulgarian woman ever to win a world championship gold medal in artistic gymnastics.
Back home, the press called it a zlatna nedelya, a golden Sunday. Bulgaria’s “golden account,” as one paper put it, had finally been opened.
The moment would be replayed, narrated, and commemorated for decades. What took longer to register was that Stoyanova was not 15 when she won gold.
