The former double Olympic medalist Maricica Puica has
\nrecently been awarded the Golden Girdle, the highest award given by Romania’s
\nOlympic and Sports Committee in recognition of a life dedicated to Sports and
\nOlympic ideals. Besides her career in sports, Maricica Puica has constantly
\nbeen involved in the process of supporting children and junior athletes on
\ntheir way to performance. <\/p>\n
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Her contribution along the years included prizes and
\nequipment for the promising young athletes. In 1997 she was nominated National Ambassador
\nfor Sports, Tolerance and Fair Play with the Council of Europe. In 2000 she was
\nawarded the National Order of Faithful Service in rank of knight and in 2004
\nshe got the Order of Sports Merit First Class. <\/p>\n
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Maricica Puic\u0103 was born in Iasi on June 29th 1950
\nand trained at the Olympia Sports Club in Bucharest. Experts believe that this
\nremarkable athlete would have run during training and contests a total over 90
\nthousand kilometers, which means double the Earth’s circumference. In a sports
\ncareer spanning over 20 years she mustered 25 gold medals in top competitions,
\n21 silver and one bronze. <\/p>\n
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At the age of 17 she obtained her first notable performance
\nin Istanbul when she became a Balkan champion in a cross country race. She
\nbecame world champion in 1978 with a Romanian team which also included Natalia
\nAndrei, Georgeta Gazibara, Antoaneta Iacob and Fi\u0163a Lovin. <\/p>\n
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She managed to win the world title in 1982 and 1984 also as
\na cross-country racer. She set 6 world records on various distances, 2 European
\nand 15 Balkan. <\/p>\n
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In 1984, after she had become the world’s cross country
\nchampion, she walked away from the Los Angeles Olympics with 2 medals, one gold
\nin the 3-thousand-meter race and bronze in the 15-hundred-meter dash.<\/p>\n
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At the Los Angeles Olympics, Puica set two records in the
\n3-thousand-meter race. Furthermore, she was the only athlete to have obtained a
\nworld and an Olympic title in the same year. Her last big performance was the
\ngold medal she got at the European Championship in The Hague in 1989 at the age
\nof 39. <\/p>\n
(bill)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Olympic Award for Maricica Puic\u0103<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":121743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40940],"tags":[29333,42004,42001,31331,42003,42002,41897,29456,41898],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-115480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-ambassador","tag-angeles","tag-fita","tag-gold","tag-los","tag-lovin","tag-maricica","tag-medal","tag-puica"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n