Athlete of the week

High-diving swimmer Constantin Popovici

Florin Orban, 01.08.2023, 13:45

The World Swimming
Championships in Japan’s Fukukoa drew to a close last week. For Romanian swimming,
some swimmers’ performances were dismally below-par, while other swimmers confirmed
their standing. We know all too well all hopes were pinned on world record
holder and European champion in the 100m freestyle event and holder of the European
title in the 200m freestyle event, David Popovici. He failed to step onto a
step of the podium at least once. However, high-diving swimmers Costantin Popovici and Cătălin Preda’s
performance way above par: the two came in 1st and second, respectively.
Reason enough for Radio Romania International to designate Constantin Popovici the
athlete of the week.

In this past Tuesday’s
high dives, from the 27-meter-high board, Popovici and Preda came in 1st
and 2nd, respectively, in the first two series. Following in
descending order were Ukrainian Oleksiy Prigorov, Spaniard Carlos Gimeno and French Gary Hunt. Following
two more jumps on Thursday, Constantin Popovici became world champion, with a
total of 472.80 points. Second came in Cătălin Preda, with 438.45 points.
Stepping on the third step of the podium was French diver Gary Hunt, with 426.30
points. Constantin Popovici said the following:

The pressure was quite high, I tried to focus on what I had to do and I eventually
succeeded. Given that it was four years ago when we last had a world
championship, you don’t get the chance to participate in such a contest quite often
and my motivation was I think the strongest of all participants today.

Constantin Popovici was born in Bucharest on October 2nd,
1988. In 2008, in Beijing, Popovici represented Romania in the high-diving event
and came in 23rd in the 10-meter-high board. Popovici retired from competition,
then he resumed his activity, focusing on high diving. In 2019 he was the first
Romanian to have won a contest as part of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. In 2022 Popovici
became a European champion in Rome. At present, he is the world’s best diver. As
regards the prospects of high diving as a sports discipline, Popovici was upbeat
about it.

There are countries acknowledging this sports discipline as a
discipline with a cleat-cut future, a sports discipline with a lot of potential,
very likely to become an Olympic discipline pretty soon. There are such
countries as Canada or the USA where such dedicated facilities were built and where
they invest in so many people. It may not be an Olympic discipline, yet they invest
because they know that time will come when it will gain such a status, and that
will find themselves having everything at the ready and being also prepared to
win the Olympic medals. Romania has shown a little bit of interest to that end,
but I think there’s a lot more that needs to be done, given that we have the
world’s best high divers.