Tervel Dlagnev is an Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time World bronze medalist and a two-time NCAA Division II champion.

One of the nation’s best heavyweight freestyle wrestlers in history, he was born in Bulgaria and moved to the United States with his family when he was four years old. Troubled and out of shape as a kid, he initially began wrestling during his sophomore year at Arlington High School in Arlington, Texas, as a way to lose weight.

After finishing fourth at the Texas state tournament as a junior and third as a senior, Dlagnev walked on at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. Following a sixth-place finish at the NCAA DII tournament as a freshman, he reached the finals as a sophomore and then won back-to-back titles as a junior and senior in 2007 and 2008.

As a senior he was named the inaugural NCAA DII Wrestler of the Year after going 49-0 and not allowing a single offensive point while helping UNK win its first-ever team national championship. The two-time Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Wrestler of the Year secured the team title by winning his final collegiate match, which was his 71st consecutive win and allowed him to repeat at national champion.

He set school records with 167 career wins and 49 wins in a season while also being a four-time RMAC champion and a four-time Academic All-American. Dlagnev won the Midlands Championships in 2006 and was one of the few non-Division I wrestlers to compete in the National Wrestling Coaches Association All-Star Classic, defeating Wade Sauer of Cal-State Fullerton, 11-7.

After originally placing fifth at the 2012 London Olympics, Dlagnev was awarded the bronze medal in 2019 after Artur Taymazov was stripped of his gold medal for testing positive for a banned substance. He returned to the Olympics in 2016 and placed fifth in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He won bronze medals at the World Championships in 2009 and 2014 while placing fifth in 2011 and 2013. He won the U.S. World Team Trials in 2015, but was unable to compete in the World Championships due to injury.

He was a two-time gold medalist and a bronze medalist at the Alexander Medved International, and a 2011 Pan American Games and 2008 University World Champion.

Dlagnev has been an assistant coach at the University of Nebraska since 2023, after serving as the team’s volunteer assistant in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He worked as an assistant coach at Ohio State University and also worked with athletes at the Ohio Regional Training Center from 2016 to 2022.

He is a member of the NCAA Division II Wrestling Hall of Fame and the UNK Athletics Hall of Fame, and USA Wrestling presented him with the John Smith Award as the Freestyle Wrestler of the Year in 2014.