At the age of 11 he joined the first group of weight lifting trainees in the Vasil Levski Sports School under the leadership of Gancho Karushkov.

He is ranked second with the number of medals won in total and leads the ranking among Bulgarians by the number of medals won in Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships in snatch, clean and jerk and total – 22 gold, 19 silver, 4 bronze.

Zlatev was originally intended to represent Bulgaria at the 1988 Olympic Games in the Light Heavyweight (82,5 kg) category.

[1] However, two of his teammates who had won gold medals in their weight classes tested positive for banned substances, and the Bulgarian weightlifting federation pulled the rest of the team out of the competition the day before Zlatev was scheduled to compete.

[1] Zlatev competed at the 2017 World Masters Games in Auckland, New Zealand, in the M 55-59 year group as a 69 kg lifter.