Athlete of the Week – Wrestler Andreea Ana
Romanian athletes walked away with four medals from the European Wrestling Championships in Tirana
Florin Orban, 28.04.2026, 13:45
Springtime is the season of European championships in many sports. A couple of days ago the news coming from the European Wrestling Championships in the Albanian capital proved that Romania made a slight headway in this sport. Last year, the Romanian delegation walked away with three medals from the European Championship in Bratislava: two silver won by Andreea Ana and Kateryna Zelenykh and one bronze by Alexandra Anghel. Now Romania ended the competition in Tirana with four medals won exclusively in female competitions.
Andreea Ana won gold in the 55 kilogram category while Alexandra Anghel got silver in the 76. Alina Vuc and Kateryna Zelenykh stepped onto the podium’s third step in the 50 and 68 kilogram category respectively. Following these results, Radio Romania International has designated Andreea Ana Athlete of the Week.
Andreea joined the competition in Tirana on Wednesday. She managed to outperform the German challenger Anastasia Blayvas in the quarters and Mihaela Samoil of the Republic of Moldova in the semifinals. The Romanian athlete managed to outperform Lilia Malanchuk of Ukraine in the finals. Malanchuk got the silver, while Blayvas and Tuba Demir of Turkey became bronze medalists.
Andreea Beatrice Ana was born in Mangalia, on November 14th 2000. In 2018 she reaped bronze in the U23 World Wrestling Championship in Bucharest. A year later also in the Romanian capital, she scooped bronze in the European championship, a performance she reiterated in Warsaw in 2021. She represented Romania at the Tokyo Olympics but ranked only 16th. Then she got a series of medals in major competitions such as the U23 World Wrestling Championship in Belgrade, then the European championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and the European Championship in Budapest, in 2022. She was the first to bring gold from Hungary in a European women’s wrestling contest. She successfully defeated her champion title in Zagreb in 2023 then in Bucharest in 2024. At the Olympics in Paris she made it to the competition’s re-qualifying stage where she conceded defeat to Choe Hyo-gyong of North Korea, who eventually became the bronze medalist.
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