RRI Sports Club

Gymnastics

Florin Orban, 19.04.2023, 13:45

No Romanian Gymnastics team has qualified for the Olympic Games for more
than ten years. The last time they did, back in 2012 at the London Olympics,
the Romanian women’s team comprising Cătălina Ponor, Sandra Izbaşa, Larisa
Iordache, Diana Bulimar and Diana Chelaru won the bronze medal. The last
Olympic medals in individual events also date from the London Games, with
Izbaşa winning the gold in vault and Ponor the silver in the floor event. In
the following two editions of the Olympic Games the Romanian gymnasts did not
do very well. The best result came in Rio in the men’s competition, when Marian
Drăgulescu ranked fourth in the vault event. Andrei Muntean finished in 6th
place in parallel bars. In the women’s events, Cătălina Ponor finished in 7th
place in the beam event. At the Tokyo 2020 Games which took place in 2021
because of the Covid 19 pandemic, no Romanian gymnast reached the finals. Marian
Drăgulescu and Maria Holbură did not do very well in the qualifiers and Larisa
Iordache, despite finishing fourth in the floor event in the qualifiers, was
unable to compete in the final because of an injury.

We are now close to the end of another Olympic cycle, to end next year
with the Olympic Games in Paris. Qualifying tournaments are already under way
and Romania’s teams have made the first step at the European Championship in
Antalya, Turkey. The men’s team ranked 11th in the team event and the
women’s team came fifth, thus securing their qualification for the World
Championships to be held this autumn in Anvers, where the final list will be
decided of the teams who will travel to Paris for the Olympic Games. The men’s
team comprised Andrei Muntean, Gabriel Burtănete, Robert Burtănete, Nicholas
Ţarcă and Răzvan Marc. In the individual events, Gabriel Burtănete ranked
fourth in the vault and Andrei Muntean also fourth in the parallel bars. The
women’s team comprised Ana Maria Bărbosu, Sabrina Voinea, Amalia Ghigoarţă,
Lilia Cosman and Andreea Preda, with Voinea winning the only medal of the
Romanian delegation, a bronze in the floor event. She came fourth in the vault.