Born on 12.09.1960 in Rakovski
On 02.08.1980, when Peter Lesov was at the age of 19 years, 11 months and 20 days he won the boxing title at the Olympic Games in Moscow, Russia, in a 51 kg category. Thus he became the youngest Olympic champion of Bulgaria. He is a two-time European champion for men – in 1981 in Tampere, Finland, and in 1983 in Varna, Bulgaria. Lesov is the champion of the First World Junior Championship in December 1979 in Yokohama, Japan. He took second place in 1981 and third place in 1983 in the World Cup tournaments. He is missing only gold medal from the world championships for men.
Lesov has all possible titles from the different age groups in Bulgaria. Between 1974 and 1979 he competed for the team of Lokomotiv (Plovdiv), and after that for the team of CSKA. He played 263 amateur ring matches. After 1985, he moved to the coaching profession. He started his career at the team of CSKA, and also assisted as a coach at the national team where he worked for nearly 15 years. In the period from 2007 until 2011 he was a senior coach of the national team of Bulgaria, where Detelin Dalakliev became world champion and European vice-champion, Kubrat Pulev – European champion, and Tervel Pulev – European vice-champion. At the same time, after being a coach for seven years, Martin Krastev won the first European title for professionals in Bulgaria under his coaching. He also trained Stanimira Petrova – world champion and twice European champion, for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. In 2009, he was named “Coach of the Year” in Bulgaria in an interview of the Trud Newspaper. In recent years he has been senior coach of the national team of young women and girls.
Peter Lesov has been an honorary citizen of Plovdiv since 2001. He graduated from the National Sports Academy. Lesov entered the boxing hall in 1974 in his hometown, attracted to this sport by Lyuben Gadzhev. He has also worked with the coaches Petar Stoychev, Peycho Paev and Nikolay Dzhalatov.
Interview with Peter Lesov: After my first race, I decided I did not get to boxing!
Project № BG06-103 "Establishing a Youth Centre in the City of Plovdiv" under the programme "Children and Youth at Risk", component 1 "Care for Youth at Risk" with the financial support of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2009-2014.
Project № BGLD-1.003-0002 "Youth Centre Plovdiv - a powerful factor for local development" under the programme “Local development, poverty reduction and enhanced inclusion of vulnerable groups” funded by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2014-2021.