As with almost every September in Bulgaria, sporting life has begun to heat up. Both basketball and volleyball have forced their way to centre stage in Sofia.

From September 22 to 30, Sofia became the world capital of volleyball. The Winter Palace of sport hosted the games of Group B in the Euro-2001 women's championships. Holland, Italy, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and Croatia competed to find the two best teams to play the top two teams in Group A in Varna, where Bulgaria, Greece, France, Romania, the Czech Republic and Russia played.

Bulgaria has gone undefeated so far, taking down the Czech Republic by a score of 3-0 on Wednesday. Prior to this, the Bulgarians beat Greece 3-1 on Sunday, and followed that up by defeating Romania by the same score on Tuesday. Later that day, after a very hard match, the Bulgarians beat France 3-2.

Three rounds from the start of the championship, Russia is in the lead in Group A with nine points and no games lost. Bulgaria ranks second with the same amount of points but with four lost games. Romania is third followed by France, the Czech Republic and Greece.

In Group B, Italy leads with six points ahead of Ukraine, Croatia, Germany, Poland and Holland.

"The organization has been perfect, the audience and the referees very competent and fair," said one of the biggest authorities in world volleyball, the senior coach of the Russian team Nikolai Karpol.

In addition to the fall excitement, Sofia was recently chosen as the centre for the new South European basketball league. Its main office will be in the Universiada Hall, and the league's head and executive director of the Bulgarian Basketball Association, Kosta Iliev, is convinced that it is a convenient and practical enterprise. "It will secure a stable international competition calendar for the Bulgarian teams at far smaller expenses for travelling and organization, with increased opportunities for engaging sponsors and television companies."

The two best Bulgarian teams, champions Levski (Sofia) and the vice-champions Yambolgaz (Yambol), together with another seven leading teams from Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Macedonia and Israel, will play a minimum of eight games from October to January, and the first three in the ranking list will go on to compete in the World Cup. The games will start on October 16 at the latest.

Elsewhere in Bulgarian sport, after the September 11 tragedies in New York and Washington, the Bulgarian capital offered to host the World Wrestling championships, which had been due to be held in New York.

Unfortunately, Sofia does not have the most impressive of facilities for international competitions. The national stadium Vassil Levski is under reconstruction for the second year in a row. The only licensed course for track and field events is at the small stadium of the National Sports Academy, which needs a lot of improvement.

Sofia, though, has a warm, welcoming heart, and has put on its best show of hospitality to match the glowing autumn season.