The Champions of 2025

Rower Simona Radiş

Florin Orban, 31.12.2025, 13:45

Rowing provided Romania with the biggest number of world titles in 2025, with Romanian rowers competing in 12 events, and winning six medals in half of them. In recent years, in fact, rowing has been a success story for Romanian sports, with Romanian rowers winning medals at every world and European championship held in the last few years.

At this year’s World Championships, which took place in September in Shanghai, China, Romanian athletes won six medals, two of which were gold and four were silver. This result put Romania in fourth place in the nations’ standings. The two world titles were won in the mixed eight and women’s pair, with Simona Radiş and Magdalena Rusu competing in both events. We talked about the women’s pair race and Magdalena Rusu’s career in our show yesterday. Today we will introduce you to Simona Radiş, one of the most decorated Romanian athletes in recent years.

The mixed eight event was introduced for the first time at the 2025 World Championships. Along with Simona and Magdalena, the crew that represented Romania also included Maria Lehaci, Andrada-Maria Moroşanu, Florin Lehaci, Florin Arteni, Ciprian Tudosă, Ştefan Berariu and Victoria Petreanu as coxswain. Both the heats and the final took place on the last day of the Championships. The Romanian crew won their heat, being almost seven seconds ahead of the second-ranked team, Italy. In the final, they again finished ahead of Italy by over 5 seconds, to win the gold medal.

Simona Radiş was born in Botoşani (north), on April 5, 1999. She has numerous European and world champion titles to her record sheet. In 2021, in Tokyo, she won, together with Ancuţa Bodnar, the Olympic title in the women’s double sculls, bringing Romania the only gold medals at the Tokyo Games. In 2024, in Paris, she won, together with Ancuţa, the Olympic silver in the women’s double sculls and was part of Romania’s eight crew that won the gold medals. This makes Simona Radiş and Ancuţa Bodnar the rowers with the largest number of medals among the current Romanian rowing team. Before the European Championships in Plovdiv, in spring, they were part of different crews. In Bulgaria, Simona took the gold in the women’s pair together with Magdalena Rusu, while Ancuţa Bodnar was part the women’s coxless four, winning silver, just like at the World Championships in Shanghai, in September.