Farewell to two stars
Sports legend Ivan Patzaichin and actor Ion Caramitru, the president of the Romanian Theatre Union, are no longer among us
Corina Cristea, 06.09.2021, 14:00
Romanians are grieving as of Sunday, when two valuable personalities passed away: several times canoeing Olympic champion Ivan Patzaichin and actor Ion Caramitru, the director of the Bucharest National Theatre and the head of the Romanian Theatre Union (UNITER).
“A legend … a champion human being has turned into a star. Ivan Patzaichin has left us. His is a success story, but also a story of decency and strength of character. It is the story of a son of the Danube Delta who gave back tenfold and inspired people to live beautifully, the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee announced on Sunday morning. The athlete was 71.
The winner of seven Olympic medals, four gold and three silver, Ivan Patzaichin also won 22 world championships. As a coach, he carried on his stellar track record, as his students won as many as 150 Olympic, world and European competitions.
Had this been a regular early autumn day, Ivan Patzaichin would have now given us details about a new edition of the international rowing festival “Rowmania Fest, organised for over 10 years now by the “Ivan Patzaichin – Mila 23 Association and scheduled to take place these very days. Over the years, the event has included the first European childrens triathlon, competitions on the Danube between various Delta communities, roundtables on biodiversity, concerts, fairs and outdoor exhibitions.
A modest, generous and selfless man, Ivan Patzaichin repeatedly turned down political and administrative posts, and went through the suffering of the recent period with the same smile he had given the world on so many occasions, including a race with a broken paddle that left the world speechless.
He was the vice-president of the Romanian Kayaking and Canoeing Federation and vice-president of the Romanian Olympic Committee (elected in 1990) and he is the only Romanian athlete to hold the Platinum Wreath Olympic Order.
Also on Sunday, the great actor Ion Caramitru died, aged 79. He was the director of the National Theatre in Bucharest, played hundreds of parts on stage, in radio drama and on screen. He was a stage director, a professor, a culture minister, the president of UNITER, and a participant in the 1989 anti-communist revolution in Romania.
During his long and outstanding acting career, Ion Caramitru won countless awards and distinctions, and was made an honorary knight of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1995. He was also awarded as Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in France.
Ion Caramitru was declared one of the best 10 actors in the role of Hamlet in a ranking put together by the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Michael Boyd. As he himself confessed, Caramitrus life was very much shaped by poetry, which he saw as a miracle of language. (tr. A.M. Popescu)
