Antoaneta Stefanova is former world chess champion from 2005. When Veselin Topalov grabbed the same title in 2005, Bulgaria became the number 1 chess country in the world, having both of the titles, something no other country has done after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Antoaneta Stefanova was born on April 19, 1979 in Sofia, Bulgaria. She received her first chess lessons from her father when she was only four years old. In 1986, at the age of six, she became Sofia champion. In 1989, she won the world chess tournament for kids in Puerto Rico. Antoaneta Stefanova has participated in 5 Chess Olympics, the first one in Manila, Philippines, when she was only 13 years old. In the year 2000 she was promoted to the men national team of Bulgaria for the Chess Olympics in Istanbul. Before that, she earned the Grandmaster title in 1997 after her FIDE rating grew up to top ten. The title Grandmaster has been honored to only eleven women in the world. As of October 2007, Antoaneta Stefanova's ELO is 2463 and she can compete in men's tournaments. In 2004, Antoaneta Stefanova became the youngest person to be announced Honorable Citizen of Plovdiv.