http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=123563
World freestyle wrestling champion (84 kg) Mihail Ganev is fighting for his life after an early morning knife brawl in a pub in Gabrovo, northern Bulgaria.
Ganev and his friends, including his brother, were attacked around 5.30 am by a person wielding a knife who managed to stab the wrestler several times in the abdomen.
Ganev’s brother and his other friend were also injured, albeit lightly.
The wrestling champion is currently undergoing surgery in the Gabrovo hospital and his life is in danger.
The attacker has been found and detained by the police, which he tried to resist using force. The cause of the fight has not been ascertained yet.
Mihail Ganev was born in 1985 in Veliko Tarnovo. He won the gold medal in freestyle wrestling (84 kg) this September at the World Championship in Moscow. In 2005 he got world gold in wrestling competing as a youth.
http://bulgaria.world-countries.net/archives/76302
The condition of the Bulgarian wrestling champion, Mihail Ganev, is stable, the Head of the Intensive Care Unit at the Gabrovo hospital, Dr. Georgi Ivanov, informs Monday.
Ganev, Bulgaria’s world freestyle wrestling champion, was stabbed in a night club brawl in the central city of Gabrovo, early in the morning of December 26th.
Dr. Ivanov says the wrestler will be moved to another unit in one to two days while doctors now are monitoring his condition. Ganev will need a recovery period of a month and a half, but after that he should be able to resume training and competing without problems.
The treating physicians confirm the wrestler had 5 stab-wounds with 2 of them – in the stomach and in the back – being very serious.
Meanwhile, Ganev’s coach, Simeon Shterev, said in a Monday interview for the TV channel bTV, Mihail would not be able to participate in the European Wrestling Championship in March because of the wounds and called the stabbing a “psychopath’s act.”
Shterev confirmed statements of the family the wrestler got involved in the brawl over his attempt to prevent it and said “Misho is a calm and cheerful person.”
In the same interview, Bulgaria’s Competitor of the Year, female wrestling champion, Stanka Zlateva, confirmed Ganev was a “good and shy” person, adding she even had a hard time believing he agreed to go to a night club.