Between 1980 and 1981, Bulgarian female athletes like Daniela Nenova, Emilia Kunova, and Valentina Dimitrova made rapid progress in pentathlon and heptathlon, setting national records and achieving personal bests in multiple competitions,
Recommended books by various authors like Joel P Smith, Harry Marra, John Rap, Bert Vreeswijk, Frédéric Gousset, Mike Chapman, Framk Zarnowski and Dale Harder
East Germany, led by Ramona Neubert and Sybille Thiele, were favorites in Sofia, while Bulgaria and the USSR provided strong competition despite key absences.
Women's pentathlon is a combined track and field event in which each woman competes in five separate events over one day (formerly two days). Pentathlon events: 60m hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and 800m.