Sports Weekend
A roundup of the latest performances obtained by Romanian athletes
Florin Orban, 10.05.2024, 13:45
Romanian athlete Alin Alexuc-Ciurariu on Thursday qualified for the upcoming Olympics in Paris, after a couple of wins in the pre-Olympic wrestling tournament in Istanbul. The Romanian competed in the Greek-Roman style, the 130 kilogram category. A European champion in 2020, Alexuc also represented Romania at the London Olympics in 2012, in Rio, in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020. Romania presently boasts 83 athletes qualified for the Olympic Games in 12 disciplines.
Romanian tennis players Sorana Cîrstea and Jaqueline Cristian on Thursday qualified for the third round of the WTA 1.000 tournament in Rome, a competition with 4,800,000 Euros in prize money.
Sorana clinched a two-set win 7-5, 6-0 against Brenda Fruhvirtova of the Czech Republic and will be playing sixth seeded Marketa Vondrousova in the third round. Jaqueline Cristian who made it to the main draw as ”lucky loser”, obtained a 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 win against Elina Avanesyan of Russia in a match that lasted almost three hours. In the third round the Romanian will be up against the world’s number three, Coco Gauff, of the United States.
On Sunday in Brno, the Romanian national side will be playing the Czech selection in the second round of the playoffs for the World Handball Championships next year. The Romanians won the first match at home 31-30. The World handball Championships will be hosted by Croatia, Denmark and Norway over January 14th and February 2nd.
Football lovers in Romania this weekend are going to find out the sides that will demote to the second football league. Two elevens, Dinamo and FCU Craiova, are on the last positions in the ranking to be demoted to the second league. Dinamo will be playing in a home game UTA Arad and Craiova will be up against FC Hermannstadt. Poli Iași also on their own turf will be playing Petrolul Ploiești while FC Voluntari also in a home match takes on Universitatea Cluj. Oțelul Galați, also at home, takes on FC Botoșani.
Sepsi Sfântu Gheorghe plays Rapid București, while the champions FCSB, will be meeting CFR Cluj in Bucharest on Saturday. CFR Cluj will fight for the second position in the ranking. Another side fighting for this position, which ensures qualification for the preliminaries of the Conference League, is Universitatea Craiova, which is taking on Farul Constanta in an away game. CFR and Craiova have the same number of points.
In the end we remind you that you can revisit this report on the Internet at rri.ro as well as on Radio Romania International’s Facebook profile.
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