Yordan Yovchev

Yordan Yovchev
Personal information
Country represented	Bulgaria
Born	(1973-02-24) February 24, 1973 (age 44) Plovdiv
Height	1.60 m (5 ft 3 in)
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Medal record Representing  Bulgaria Olympic Games 2004 Athens Rings 2000 Sydney Floor exercise 2000 Sydney Rings 2004 Athens Floor exercise World Championships 2001 Ghent Floor 2001 Ghent Rings 2003 Anaheim Floor 2003 Anaheim Rings 1996 San Juan Rings 2002 Debrecen Floor 2002 Debrecen Rings 2006 Aarhus Rings 2009 London Rings 1995 Sabae Rings 1999 Tianjin All Around 2001 Ghent All Around 2007 Stuttgart Rings European Championships 2002 Patras Rings 2002 Patras All Around 2002 Patras Floor 2004 Ljubljana Floor 2006 Volos Rings 2007 Amsterdam Rings 2008 Lausanne Rings 2009 Milan Rings 2010 Birmingham Rings European Team Championships 1997 Paris Team

Yordan Yovchev Yovchev (Bulgarian: Йордан Йовчев Йовчев; born February 24, 1973), also spelled Jordan Jovtchev, is a Bulgarian gymnast.

Yovchev was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. He won silver in the men's rings at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens with a score of 9.850. In the same Olympic Games, Yovchev won bronze in the men's floor exercise with a score of 9.775. In the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he won the bronze on both floor exercise and still rings with 9.787 and 9.762 respectively. He also won two World Championship Bronze medals in the all around (1999, 2001).

Yovchev made his fifth Olympic team for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and qualified again for the Rings exercise. He qualified second with a score of 16.275 under the new scoring system, but missed a handstand and finished the final in last place with a score of 15.525.

He has competed in many SASUKE tournaments, reaching the final stage in the 8th competition; he did not pass the spider climb in the first 15 seconds, so the walls spread apart and he fell. He is the only competitor to not pass the spider climb in this version of the final stage, other than Shingo Yamamoto who did not complete it due to injury, but his early failure could be attributed to the heavy rain during the entire competition. Since then he has not passed the third stage.

He, Krasimir Dunev, and Ivan Ivanov moved to the United States after the 1996 Summer Olympics, staying in Detroit, Michigan as they wanted to compete professionally in the United States. During his career, he turned down proposals to change his sporting allegiance and compete for the United States.

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