Stiliana Nikolova

Stiliana Nikolova (Стилияна Николова, born 22 August 2005 in Cairo, Egypt) is a Bulgarian individual rhythmic gymnast. She is the 2024 European all-around champion, the 2022 World all-around bronze medalist and hoop, clubs, and ribbon silver medalist, the 2023 World ball bronze medalist and team competition champion, and a two-time (2022, 2023) European all-around bronze medalist and champion in the team competition. At the national level, she is a two-time national champion (in 2023 and 2024) and the 2022 national all-around silver medalist.

At the junior level, she is the 2020 European Junior ribbon champion and ball silver medalist and the 2019 and 2020 Bulgarian Junior all-around champion.

Personal life
Nikolova was born 22 August 2005 in Cairo, Egypt. Her father, Iliya Dyakov, was a football player who represented Bulgaria at the 1986 Football World Cup in Mexico. Her mother, Paulina Nikolova, was a group rhythmic gymnast who competed for Bulgaria and is the 1985 World Group all-around champion. Nikolova has one sister, Paola, and a brother, Denis.

Since a very young age, Nikolova spent all her time at the training hall together with her mother and older sister, who both work as rhythmic gymnastic coaches in Egypt. She moved alone to Bulgaria in 2018 at age of 13 to join the Bulgarian national team. She speaks four languages - Arabic, Bulgarian, English and Russian.

Junior
She competed at the 2019 Bulgarian Junior National Championships, where she won the gold medal in the all-around in addition to the ball and ribbon finals, and the silver medal in the rope and clubs finals. She competed at the 2019 Junior World Championships in Moscow, Russia, where she placed 8th in the team competition and 16th in clubs qualifications.

In 2020, she became the Bulgarian junior national all-around champion once again. She also won gold with ball, clubs and ribbon and abronze medal with rope. She competed at the International Tournament in Moscow, where she and her teammate Eva Brezalieva took 2nd place in the team competition. She also won the gold medal in the all-around at the International Tournament Corbeil-Essonnes in France. In the finals, she placed 1st with rope and ball and 3rd with ribbon. She competed at the 2020 Junior European Championships in Kyiv, Ukraine and qualified for two apparatus finals. She won the gold medal with ribbon and the silver medal with ball.

2022
In the 2022 season, she participated at the 2022 Grand Prix Marbella, where she won the all-around bronze. She qualified for three apparatus finals, winning gold in hoop and clubs and taking the silver in the ball final. On April 8–10, she competed at Sofia World Cup, where she placed third in the all-around. She also won gold in clubs and silver in the ribbon final. In May, Nikolova participated at the 2022 World Challenge Cup in Pamplona where she won silver in the all-around behind teammate Boryana Kaleyn. She also won the gold in the clubs final and silver in ball. On June 3–5, she competed at the Pesaro World Cup, where she finished 3rd in the all-around and qualified for three apparatus finals, winning bronze medals with clubs and ball and silver in hoop.

From June 15–19, Nikolova competed at the 2022 European Championships in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she won gold as part of the Bulgarian team and bronze in the all-around. On August 26-28, she competed at the 2022 World Challenge Cup Cluj-Napoca and won the silver in all-around. She also won two medals in the apparatus finals - gold in clubs and bronze in the hoop final.

She was then selected to compete at the 2022 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships, in Sofia, Bulgaria, along with teammate Boryana Kaleyn. She qualified to the individual all-around final and three apparatus finals. In the all-around final, she won bronze, and she also won three silver medals in the hoop, clubs and ribbon finals. She also won an Olympic quota for Bulgaria.

2023
Her first competition in the 2023 season was Grand Prix Miss Valentine in Tartu, Estonia, where she finished second in the all-around and qualified to the ball, clubs and ribbon finals. She won both the ball and clubs finals.

Afterward, she competed at the 2023 Grand Prix Marbella, where she won silver in the all-around. She qualified for all four apparatus finals, winning gold in ball and clubs and bronze in hoop and ribbon.

She also took part in the Athens World Cup, where she won silver in all-around, gold in ball and bronze in the ribbon final. At the next World Cup in Sofia, she won the all-around. She qualified for all four finals, winning three more gold medals with hoop, ball and clubs. Two weeks later at the Baku World Cup, she again won gold in all-around as well as gold in the hoop, clubs and ribbon finals.

Nikolova was then selected to compete at the 2023 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, in Baku, Azerbaijan. She qualified in first place for the all-around final and also for three apparatus finals. In the all-around final, she won bronze, repeating her achievement from previous year. In the event finals the next day, she also won silver with ball and bronze with ribbon.

At the 2023 World Championships, Nikolova came in fourth in the all-around final after several mistakes. She had a drop in her ball routine, and she did not hear the signal to start her ribbon routine on time; on restarting, she had a knot in her ribbon. However, she and the rest of the Bulgarian gymnasts won first place in the team competition. She also qualified to the hoop and ball finals. Although she ended in eighth place in the hoop final, she won bronze with the ball behind Darja Varfolomeev and Sofia Raffaeli.

2024: First European title
In March, Nikolova participated in the Grand Prix stage in Marbella, Spain. She was first place in the all-around ahead of Takhmina Ikromova and the previous season's World champion, Varfolomeev. She also won the clubs and ribbon finals. Her next competition was the World Cup held in Sofia, Bulgaria. There she won the all-around silver behind fellow Bulgarian Boryana Kaleyn and ahead of Daria Atamanov. She also qualified to three of the apparatus finals: hoop, ball, and ribbon. Nikolova won the ball final with the highest score that had been awarded thus far under the 2022-2024 Code of Points, and she also won the ribbon final and took silver with hoop. Both Nikolova and Kaelyn expressed gratitude for the supportive home crowd and stated that they were aiming to win gold at the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics.

Nikolova participated in the inaugural Rhythmic Gymnastics European Cup, which had an unusual knock-out round format for the all-around final. She was the event's first winner, and she expressed interest in the new competition format.

At the 2024 European Championships, Nikolova won her first European all-around title ahead of Raffaeli and Varfolomeev. She also won silver medal in Hoop final, placed 4th in Ribbon and 5th in Ball final.

Competitive highlights
(Team competitions in seniors are held only at the World Championships, Europeans and other Continental Games.)