One of the best Bulgarian water polo players and coaches in history, Vasil Nanov, has turned 60!
Nurtured in swimming sports by his father – the famous coach Nikola Nanov-Pasha, Vasko started out as a swimmer, but quickly switched to water polo. He has several titles with the juniors of Lokomotiv (Sf), 7 titles with the men of CSKA and 11 Bulgarian Cups with the men’s teams of CSKA and Lokomotiv (Sf).
He played in one world championship – West Berlin 1978 (8th place), in two World Cups – Belgrade 1979 and Long Beach 1981 and in 9 consecutive European Championships. Vasil Nanov was in the men’s national team from 1976-1991.
He became the first Bulgarian water polo player to play in Italy – he had two seasons with Lazio (1987-1989) and two with Roma (1991-1993), with both teams starting in Serie B, but with his main merit the teams entered the elite Serie A. He also had two seasons in the French Montpellier (1989-1991), where Toma Tomov was the coach.
Selected in the ideal Bulgarian water polo team for the 20th century.
From 1993 to 1997 he was the head coach of the men’s national team and during this period the team qualified twice for the European Championships in the top 8 on the continent – Vienna 1995 and Seville 1997.
In 2004 he founded the SKVT “Lokomotiv Nikola Nanov”, whose president and head coach he is to this day. In 2005 formed an extremely successful coaching tandem with Georgi Gadzhev. The two of them turned the club into the most successful for Bulgarian water polo in the last 15 years.
From 2004 to 2018, Lokomotiv Nikola Nanov won a total of 50 medals in the state championships and the Bulgarian Cup tournaments in the men’s division alone, of which the titles were exactly 34. The silver medals were 10 and the bronze medals – 6.
For nine years from 2019 to 2018, the girls’ and women’s teams of the club won a total of 8 silver and 3 bronze medals from the state championships and the Bulgarian Cup tournaments for women.
Gadzhev and Nanov qualified the Bulgarian junior national team for two consecutive European Championships – Stuttgart 2010 and Rijeka 2011.
