Road to the Olympics

A look at Romania's Olympic Games qualifying prospects in table tennis.

Florin Orban, 02.07.2020, 13:45

Romania has a successful history in table tennis, especially in the women’s
competitions. Angelica Rozeanu, for example, dominated world competitions in
the 1950s. In the 1960s and 70s, Maria Alexandru won several gold medals at
world and European championships. Table tennis became an Olympic sport in 1988
in Seul. Romania began to participate in the Olympic Games in 1992, in
Barcelona. The best Olympic Games result came from Adrian Crişan, who reached
the quarterfinals at the London Olympics in 2012.

Cristinel Romanescu, the president of the Romanian Table Tennis
Federation, tells us who has qualified so far for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics:

Romania’s women’s team secured qualification in January, in Portugal. This
means two players are also qualified for the singles competition, namely Elizabeta Samara and Bernadette Szőcs. Romania’s mixed doubles pair Ovidiu
Ionescu and Bernadette Szőcs have
also boked their ticket. The men’s team qualification is still undecided. All
qualifying events have been postponed, most likely for next year, but we don’t
yet have a clear date from the International Federation.

At the moment, the latest classification published
by the International Table Tennis Federation places Bernadette Szőcs in the 24th
position and Elizabeta Samara in the 31st position, while in the men’s
ranking, Ovidiu Ionescu is in 59th place.