RRI Sports Club

Florin Orban, 27.11.2019, 12:38

The greatest Romanian rower of all
time, Ivan Patzaichin turned 70 on the 26th of November. In his
career, he won 8 world championship titles between 1970 and 1983, as well as 4
Olympic gold medals at the five editions of the Olympic Games in which he took
part between 1968 and 1984.

He took up this sport in March 1967
when he joined the Bucharest club Dinamo. He was inspired by three young men
from his native village in Danube Delta called Mila 23, who had just won the
world championship title in Berlin. He achieved his first big result three
months later, when he finished second in the national junior competition. One
year later, in 1968, he was already winning his first Olympic gold medal in
Mexico in 1,000 m canoe double race, together with Serghei Covaliov. His final
great victory came 16 years later, at the Los Angeles Olympic Games, when he
won the gold in the canoe double race together with Toma Simionov. By that
time, he had won other Olympic gold medals, in Munich in 1972 in the 1,000 m
singles race and in 1980 in Moscow, together with Simionov, in the 1,000 m race.

After retiring from competitive
sports, Ivan Patzaichin worked for many years as coach of Romania’s national
rowing teams, winning dozens of other medals together in European, world and
Olympic competitions. He later became a strong and outspoken promoter of the
Danube Delta and its people and traditions. He is busy organising races with
traditional boats and supporting sustainable tourism in the region.