Athlete of the week

Romanian women’s handball teams’ run this year in the Champions League’s group stage has so far been unprecedented. Bucharest teams Rapid and CSM, after five rounds have a no-defeat record in the competition. This past weekend, Rapid and Montenegro’s Buducnost Podgorica drew, 30-all, while Romania’s vice-champion team, CSM, trounced Czech opponents Banik Most, 40 to 15. Top scorer in both fixtures was Rapid’s Sorina Grozav. Reason enough for Radio Romania international to designate Sorina the Athlete of the week.

România Internațional, 18.10.2022, 12:04

Romanian women’s handball teams’ run this year in the Champions League’s group stage has so far been unprecedented. Bucharest teams Rapid and CSM, after five rounds have a no-defeat record in the competition. This past weekend, Rapid and Montenegro’s Buducnost Podgorica drew, 30-all, while Romania’s vice-champion team, CSM, trounced Czech opponents Banik Most, 40 to 15. Top scorer in both fixtures was Rapid’s Sorina Grozav. Reason enough for Radio Romania international to designate Sorina the Athlete of the week.

In Rapid’s away game in Podgporica, Sorina Grozav scored 7 goals. Sorina’s performance was paralleled only by her teammate, the world vice champion with the Spanish team in 2019, Marta Lopez Herrero. Rapid’s two other Spanish handballers, Ainhoa Hernández and Alicia Fernández, scored 5 and 3 goals, respectively. Also three goals scored the French Alexandra Lacrabère, while Eliza Buceschi scored twice. In Bucharest, CSM scored 40 goals against Czech opponents Banik Most, with no less than 14 handballers proving their mettle in the game. Cristina Neagu scored 5 goals, while Mihaela Mihai and Crina Pintea scored four goals each.

Sorina Grozav was born on May 27, 1999, in Ramnicu Valcea, into a family of athletes. Her mother is Romanian handball legend Mariana Tîrcă, who boasts 335 caps for the national squad, for which she scored 2043 goals, a world record for a handball player at national level. Sorina initially played as a junior, for the Power Systems College in Ramnicu Valcea, the town where a Women’s Handball National Excellence Centre was established. As a senior handball player, Sorina made her debut at 16, with Corona Brasov. In 2021, she was an on-loan handballer for Rapid Bucharest, yet this year, the club offered Sorina Grozav a permanent contract. In 2016, Sorina Grozav was officially summoned, for the first time in her career, for a national seniors’ team game counting towards the Carpati Trophy in Cluj Napoca. Sorina Grozav is an inside-left handball player. (EN)