Athletes of the Week

For their performances a the World Rowing Championships in Shanghai, Siomona Radis and Magdalena Rusu have been designated Athletes of the Week

Florin Orban, 30.09.2025, 13:45

At the latest World Rowing Championship in Shanghai, athletes from Romania competed in 12 events and won medals in six of them.  Simona Radiş and Magdalena Rusu walked away with gold medals from two competitions, from the women’s pair and the eight+1 races. For their performance, Radio Romania International has designated these two double world champions Athlete of the week.

This Romanian pair saw action on the competition’s first day, September 21. They obtained the best time in the qualifiers and made it to the semis. They also got the best time of the race on Tuesday. The two en-titre European champions led the finals race on Thursday and crossed the finish line four seconds and a half ahead the runner-up boat of France.  The United States came third in the race.

In the 8+1 mixed race, besides Simona and Magdalena, the Romanian crew also included Maria Lehaci, Andrada-Maria Morosanu, Florin Lehaci, Florin Arteni, Ciprian Tudosa, Stefan Berariu and Victoria Petreanu at the helm. Both the qualifiers and the final race were held on Sunday. The Romanian boat ended the first race almost seven seconds ahead of the team in the second position, Italy. They also won the finals race more than five seconds ahead of the Italian boat.

Simona Radiş was born in Botoşani, northern Romania, on April 5, 1999 and her prize closet includes numerous European and world titles. She claimed the Olympic title in the double scull race jointly with Ancuta Bodnar in Tokyo 2021, the only gold medals of the Romanian delegation in that edition of the Olympic Games. Last year in Paris, she won, together with Ancuţa, the Olympic silver in the double scull race and was part of the Romanian eight, which became the gold medalist. Her teammate was Magdalena Rusu, who obtained her first Olympic medal at that time.

Born in Vaslui, eastern Romania, on September 30, 1999, Rusu shot to fame together with the Romanian women’s 8, with whom she got her first major performance – gold at the European Championship in Switzerland in 2019.

She then became gold medalist in all the continental championships that followed plus at the World Championship editions in 2022 and 2023.

(bill)