Born on 11.06.1968 in Asenovgrad
On 18.09.1988 Sevdalin Marinov became an Olympic champion in Seoul, South Korea, in the 52 kg category with a record of 120 kg in the pushing and of 270 in the duel. Marinov became one of the three youngest Bulgarian Olympic champions in weightlifting (20 years, 3 months and 7 days). He is a three-time World (1985 in Södertälje, Sweden, 1986 in Sofia, Bulgaria, and 1987 in Ostrava, Czech Republic) and a five-time European champion (1985 in Katowice, Poland, 1986 in Karl-Marx-Stadt, Germany, 1987 in Reims, France, 1988 in Cardiff, UK, and 1990 in Aalborg, Denmark). He also has a silver medal from the 1989 World Championship. In the period between 1985 and 1988, he was literally unbeatable at major forums in the category of up to 52 kg. He has a total of 6 World and 9 Olympic records.
In 1979 Sevdalin Marinov started his training at the Vasil Levski Sports School and trained under the coach Dimitar Stoykov. He competed consecutively for the teams of Asenovets (from 1978 until 1983), Maritsa (from 1983 until 1987) and CSKA (from 1988 until 1991). In 1991 Marinov settled in Australia and after 1993 continued his career in the Green Continent. In 1994 he became a champion of the Commonwealth Games in the category of 64 kg. Sevdalin Marinov stopped his active sports career in 1995 and became coach of the Hawthorn Sports Club – the best club in Australia. He then was employed as the head coach of Victorian Weightlifting and as a coach of the Australian junior team and as an assistant to the men and women national coach. Since 1999 he has been a coach under the IOC program for development of weightlifting in the South Pacific. Marinov was also Australian national coach between 2002 and 2007. He was engaged as a technical person for the Sydney Olympics in Australia in 2000 and the London Olympics in the UK in 2012. In 2001 he was national coach of Malaysia. Marinov returned to Bulgaria in 2008 and was appointed as the General Director during the World Junior Championship in Sofia in 2011. A year later (in 2012) he became the national coach of Bahrain. The Maltese Local Federation appointed him as an advisor for 2013 and 2014. He is also international judge – second category.
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.