Athlete of the Week – Table Tennis Player Bernadette Szőcs
Romanian table tennis reaffirmed its quality at the European Individual Championships in Ljubljana.
Florin Orban, 20.10.2026, 13:45
Every two years, the European Table Tennis Union calendar features the individual European Championships. At the latest edition, held in 2024 in Linz, Austria, Bernadette Szőcs came very close to winning gold. She ultimately secured two silver medals, one in women’s singles and another in women’s doubles, where she competed alongside Sofia Polcanova, an Austrian player of Moldovan origin. This year, at the individual European Championships in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Romania again won two medals, this time two bronze medals. The pair made up of Bernadette Szőcs and Eduard Ionescu reached the podium in the mixed doubles, while the pair Bernadette Szőcs and Elizabeta Samara did the same in women’s doubles. In the singles events, Bernadette Szőcs and Elena Zaharia were the furthest-advancing Romanian athletes, both reaching the quarter-finals. Following these results, Radio Romania International has designated Bernadette Szőcs the Athlete of the Week.
Bernadette Szőcs was born on March 5, 1995, in Târgu Mureș (in central Transylvania). She began her sporting career at the age of 8. Success in cadet and junior competitions followed relatively quickly. Bernadette won several medals at European and world events, rapidly climbing the international rankings. In 2016, at the European Championships in Budapest, she secured third place in the mixed doubles alongside Ovidiu Ionescu. A year later, at the continental championships in Luxembourg, she won her first European title as part of the Romanian team. In 2018, in Montreux, Switzerland, she triumphed at the European Top 16 tournament, a competition reserved for the continent’s top players. A year later, in Nantes, France, she once again became a European champion with the Romanian team. In Munich, in 2022, she won the European title in women’s doubles alongside the Austrian player of Moldovan origin, Sofia Polcanova, and earned a silver medal in the mixed doubles with Ovidiu Ionescu. At the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, she was eliminated once again in the round of 16 in the singles event by Polcanova. In the mixed doubles event, she and Ovidiu Ionescu finished in 5th place. Last year, at the World Championships in Doha, Qatar, Szőcs and Polcanova won silver medals in the doubles event. (LS)
