Athlete of the week
Gymnast Sabrina Maneca Voinea
Florin Orban, 10.10.2023, 13:45
Gymnastics for many years now has been among
the sports disciplines that made Romania shine, literally. At the Olympic games,
for instance, the Romanian gymnasts won 71 medals throughout the years. Of those
medals, 25 were gold, 20 silver and 26 bronze. Most of the medals were won in
the women’s version of the competition. There was also the women’s team who won last won the medals for Romania, at the London Olympics in 2012. We recall that back then Sandra
Izbasa won gold in the vault event, while Catalina Ponor walked away with silver in
the floor event. The Romanian team
won bronze, in the nations’ competition.
However, 2012 was the
last year when the Romanian gymnastics teams, both men and women, succeeded to qualify to the Olympic Games. The Romanian gymnasts’ performance in
individual events was also lackluster. In 2023, the Romanian gymnastics teams
have yet again gained their position among the world’s Olympic-level teams. At
the recently-held World Championships in Belgium’s Antwerp, the Romanian women’s team qualified to the 2024 edition of the Olympic Games in Paris.
In the individual
event, the best performance came from Sabrina Maneca – Voinea. Sabrina was that
close to stepping onto a step of the podium, since she came in 4th
in the floor final. Reason enough for Radio Romania International to designate Sabrina
the Athlete of the week.
As part of the Antwerp World Championships qualifiers, Sabrina Maneca Voinea competed in the beam and floor events alone, where she was granted 13.666
points. Sabrina’s grades in the preliminary contest in Belgium were the best among
the Romanian gymnasts’ performance. Her marks earned Sabrina the qualification
to the floor finals, as well as the substitute position in the beam final. On
Sunday, Sabrina was the last one to have fought for the floor medals. The
winner was the US gymnast Simone Biles, with 14. 633 points. Second-placed was
many-time world and Olympic champion, Brazil’s Rebeca
Andrade, with 14.500 points. The bronze medals went to another Brazilian gymnast,
Flavia Saravia, who got 13. 966
points. Sabrina came in 4th, with a
mere 2 tenths of a points from the third place of the podium.
Sabrina Maneca Voinea was born in Constanta, in the south-east, on June 4,
2007. Her mother, Camelia Voinea, is also her coach. We recall Camelia Voinea
was a top-level gymnast who won gold at the World Championships in Rotterdam,
in 1987 and silver in the Olympic Games in Seoul, in 1988, in the nations’
competition. Sabrina has been a regular member of Romania’s juniors’ gymnastics
team since 2017. In 2023, in the seniors’ version of the European Championships
held in in Antalya in April, Sabrina won bronze in the floor event.
