Stoyka Krasteva took a hard road to get to the gold at women’s flyweight, and it must feel that much more fulfilling.

Krasteva had a stern test in the first round against Nguyễn Thị Tâm, who matched her aggressive spirit and volume, but couldn’t sway the judges.

The second round was a shocker at the time, but in hindsight showed the buzzsaw that Krasteva was, as she beat Virginia “Ginny” Fuchs, of the U.S., my favorite to win the division. Krasteva seemed to annoy Fuchs early and often, as Fuchs looked irritated and off her game after the first round. When Krasteva is at her best she fights like a fly who you can’t swat, but keep annoying you via humming and stinging. This fight is a perfect example.

The bracket didn’t get any easier as Krasteva faced another heavy favorite, Chang Yuan of China, one who was viewed as a sure-fire medalist. Once again, Krasteva overwhelmed her, as two of the most decorated fighters in the bracket lost to her back-to-back.

The medal round saw Tsukimi Namiki of Japan, confused on how to solve the puzzle that was Krasteva, as well to my perception appeared to be flopping at times looking for the referee to take a point. The ref didn’t Krasteva overwhelmed the backfoot boxer, who seemed to hate the pressure.

The finals saw Krasteva put a capstone on her magnificent run by beating the number one seed, Buse Naz Çakıroğlu on all five of the judges card. Krasteva put forth the performance of a lifetime, at an event of a lifetime this was special.

With this tournament, Krasteva should go down as one of the greatest Bulgarian boxers to ever live.

No many notable facts were found on Stoyka Krasteva other than she started boxing at the age of four, and because she was a tomboy, who got into trouble often and was around mostly boys. In 2018 she began working as a coach at Lokomotiv Plovdiv in Bulgaria.