Proletina Kalcheva

Proletina Kalcheva (Bulgarian: Пролетина Калчева; born 11 December 1979) is a Bulgarian retired rhythmic gymnast. She represented Bulgaria in international competitions.

Personal life She married Konstantin Nikolov. In 2008 they had a daughter, Elena, who also practice rhythmic gymnastics and was a mascot at the 2018 World Championships in Sofia.

Career Kalcheva began training in rhythmic gymnastics at the Burgas club Chernomorets. She was a member of the national team for six years and trained with Julia Baicheva, Iliana Raeva and Neshka Robeva. In October she was selected for the World Championships in Osaka, being 6th in teams along Victoria Danova and Teodora Alexandrova.

In 2000 she became the captain of the Bulgarian senior group, in September she competed in the Olympic Games in Sydney alongGabriela Atanasova, Zhaneta Ilieva, Eleonora Kezhova, Galina Marinova and Kristina Rangelova. In Australia the group placed 6th in the preliminaries and 7th in the final.

After the Olympics Kalcheva ended her competitive career, and was named as the most important athlete of the century from the city of Burgas. She left for Spain, where she founded her own rhythmic gymnastics club "Primavera", and trained talents for 20 years.

In November 2022 she participated in a celebratory event for the 70th anniversary of the Bulgarian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation.