The 33rd International Biology Olympiad was held a few days ago in the Armenian capital Yerevan. In 1989, Bulgaria was one of the six founding countries of the competition.

This year, Bulgaria's biology Olympians achieved outstanding success by winning medals in the contested competition among more than 250 representatives of 62 countries from around the globe.

The gold medal and the historical second place in the ranking went to the eleventh grader Peter Zhotev from Sofia High School of Mathematics (SMG). Zhotev's result was surpassed only by a competitor from Russia. Overall, the four Bulgarian students (Borislav Stoyanov, Lyuboslav Ivanov and Yana Atanasova with head of the team Assoc. Prof. Albena Yordanova from the Medical Faculty of Sofia University) won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.

Peter Zhotev told BNR-Varna that this was his second participation in the competition, which had two parts - theory and practice. The first one comprised 100 multiple-choice problems to be solved within 6 hours, while the practical part involved performing experiments in zoology, botany, biochemistry and bioinformatics, studying enzyme reactions and experimenting with photosynthesis in plants.

Having achieved success, Peter now has to figure out the most important task in his life - where to continue his education. He has two options - Germany or Switzerland. He admits that he is most attracted to molecular biology and biochemistry, and his greatest ambition in the future is to work as a scientist and discover new things to bring change to humanity.

Compiled by: Vesela Krasteva