 As a chess player, he was most prominent during the 1970s, winning the Bulgarian Championship in 1971, 1974, 1977 and 1980.He just missed out at the 1976 event, finishing 2nd (with Peicho Peev, after Evgeny Ermenkov).It was during this decade that Radulov took over from Georgi Tringov as Bulgaria's leading player, eventually giving way to Kiril Georgiev in the 1980s.