Bojidar Spiriev (; 1932–2010) was a

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

hydrogeological Hydrogeology (''hydro-'' meaning water, and ''-geology'' meaning the study of the Earth) is the area of geology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rocks of the Earth's crust (commonly in aqui ...

engineer and athletics

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

credited with the creation of the official

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international sports governing body, governing body for the sport ...

Scoring Tables in Athletics.

Biography

Spiriev was born in Nevrokop (today

Gotse Delchev Georgi Nikolov Delchev (; ; 4 February 1872 – 4 May 1903), known as Gotse Delchev or Goce Delčev (''Гоце Делчев''),Originally spelled in older Bulgarian orthography as ''Гоце Дѣлчевъ''. - Гоце Дѣлчевъ. ...

), a town in southwestern

. He married Hungarian long jump champion Irén Kun in 1961 and moved to Hungary. However, it was not until 1992 that he was granted

Hungarian citizenship Hungarian nationality law is based on the principles of jus sanguinis. Hungarian citizenship can be acquired by descent from a Hungarian parent, or by naturalisation. A person born in Hungary to foreign parents does not generally acquire Hungar ...

. He is the father of former athlete and athletics manager Attila and chess player Peter. Spiriev created the "Hungarian" Scoring Tables of Athletics in 1979, which later turned into the official IAAF Scoring Tables. Together with Attila they created the World Rankings system in athletics. They also founded All-Athletics.com, the most comprehensive worldwide athletics database website. Spiriev died on 10 January 2010 at the age of 77.

References

Bojidar Spiriev (1932–2010)
Bulgarian statisticians Bulgarian expatriates in Hungary 1923 births 2010 deaths People from Gotse Delchev Macedonian Bulgarians Hydrologists Sport of athletics people Bulgarian emigrants to Hungary {{Bulgaria-engineer-stub