The World Swimming
\nChampionships in Japan’s Fukukoa drew to a close last week. For Romanian swimming,
\nsome swimmers’ performances were dismally below-par, while other swimmers confirmed
\ntheir standing. We know all too well all hopes were pinned on world record
\nholder and European champion in the 100m freestyle event and holder of the European
\ntitle in the 200m freestyle event, David Popovici. He failed to step onto a
\nstep of the podium at least once. However, high-diving swimmers Costantin Popovici and C\u0103t\u0103lin Preda’s
\nperformance way above par: the two came in 1st and second, respectively.
\nReason enough for Radio Romania International to designate Constantin Popovici the
\nathlete of the week. <\/p>\n
\n
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In this past Tuesday’s
\nhigh dives, from the 27-meter-high board, Popovici and Preda came in 1st
\nand 2nd, respectively, in the first two series. Following in
\ndescending order were Ukrainian Oleksiy Prigorov, Spaniard Carlos Gimeno and French Gary Hunt. Following
\ntwo more jumps on Thursday, Constantin Popovici became world champion, with a
\ntotal of 472.80 points. Second came in C\u0103t\u0103lin Preda, with 438.45 points.
\nStepping on the third step of the podium was French diver Gary Hunt, with 426.30
\npoints. Constantin Popovici said the following:<\/p>\n
\n
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The pressure was quite high, I tried to focus on what I had to do and I eventually
\nsucceeded. Given that it was four years ago when we last had a world
\nchampionship, you don’t get the chance to participate in such a contest quite often
\nand my motivation was I think the strongest of all participants today. <\/p>\n
\n
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Constantin Popovici was born in Bucharest on October 2nd,
\n1988. In 2008, in Beijing, Popovici represented Romania in the high-diving event
\nand came in 23rd in the 10-meter-high board. Popovici retired from competition,
\nthen he resumed his activity, focusing on high diving. In 2019 he was the first
\nRomanian to have won a contest as part of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. In 2022 Popovici
\nbecame a European champion in Rome. At present, he is the world’s best diver. As
\nregards the prospects of high diving as a sports discipline, Popovici was upbeat
\nabout it. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
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There are countries acknowledging this sports discipline as a
\ndiscipline with a cleat-cut future, a sports discipline with a lot of potential,
\nvery likely to become an Olympic discipline pretty soon. There are such
\ncountries as Canada or the USA where such dedicated facilities were built and where
\nthey invest in so many people. It may not be an Olympic discipline, yet they invest
\nbecause they know that time will come when it will gain such a status, and that
\nwill find themselves having everything at the ready and being also prepared to
\nwin the Olympic medals. Romania has shown a little bit of interest to that end,
\nbut I think there’s a lot more that needs to be done, given that we have the
\nworld’s best high divers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
High-diving swimmer Constantin Popovici<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":276936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40940],"tags":[40511,41703,39320,35017],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-116111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-champion","tag-diving","tag-performance","tag-status"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n