On Sunday, Bulgaria made a huge breakthrough in one of the sport disciplines in which, so far, it has not claimed any memorable successes.

At the world championships in modern pentathlon in the English town of Milfield, Bulgaria's Tzanko Hantov took the bronze medal - the first distinction the country has obtained in a major championship in the field. The 29-year-old, who ranked last out of 32 contestants in the European championships in Sofia on June 21-24, made a brilliant appearance this time, losing only to two Hungarians - the Sydney 2000 runner-up, Gabor Balogh, and the European title-holder in the relay race in Sofia 2001, Viktor Horvath. Hantov earned the bronze by scoring 5,474 points, with Balogh taking 5,604 and Horvath, 5,578.

Hantov, who is a student at the National Sports Academy in Sofia and a member of Sofia's Slavia sporting society, ranked among the leading three after brilliant performances in the disciplines of fencing, and horse jumping - in which he was the best of the 32 finalists.

The contest did not start well for the Bulgarian who ranked 23rd in shooting, scoring 1,060 for the general rank list. Horvath scored 1,228 points in this discipline. Hantov and the other Hungarian, Balogh, were best in the second discipline of fencing, where they excelled with 22 wins and only nine losses each. This brought them 1,000 points each for the general rank list.

After fencing, Hantov ranked fourth with 2,060 points. At this stage, he was behind Horvath (2,172 points), Balogh (2,168) and Poland's Andjey Stefanek (2,064). In the third discipline, swimming, Hantov hit another setback, finishing 16th with a time of 2.08.69 minutes. Fortunately, the three athletes who were outscoring Hantov in the swimming discipline also did not perform at expected levels - Stefanek finished 11th, Horvath 12th, and Balogh 14th.

Hantov made his move in the fourth discipline, horse jumping, where he achieved the best score. Although at the championships in Sofia, he fell off his horse twice and scored zero points, this time he maintained his concentration and made just one mistake. He finished with a time of 1.02.00 minutes, winning 1,070 points towards the final rank list. Horvath and Balogh managed to finish this event in the top 10 and retain their leading positions, but Stefanek finished 30th and gained only 648 points, which put him out of the top 16. This left Hantov in third, followed closely by the Chinese Zhanhua Zian and the European champion from Sofia in 2001, Andreus Zadneprovskis from Estonia.

The competition had to be resolved in the fifth and final discipline - the long-distance run. The Bulgarian started third and ran comparatively well, finishing 21st with a time of 9.38.42 minutes. Zian was left far behind and finished 27th, while Zadneprovskis ran strongly and finished sixth. A good finish, but not enough to make up for his weak performances in the rest of the disciplines - especially fencing and horse jumping. From their leading positions, Balogh and Horvath finished 10th and 11th respectively, taking the gold and silver.

Upon their return to Sofia on Monday, the chairman of the Bulgarian Federation for Modern Pentathlon, Simeon Monev, and Hantov were tired, but content.

"My expectations that Tzanko is capable of something great were confirmed - as long as he has a little chance," said Monev. "This time he managed to mobilize himself at the beginning of the competition and you saw what happened with fencing. I appreciate his achievement in horse riding most of all, which had a big psychological meaning to him."