{"id":997981,"date":"2026-03-24T13:45:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T11:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/?p=997981"},"modified":"2026-03-24T13:48:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T11:48:39","slug":"athlete-of-the-week-198","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/athlete-of-the-week\/athlete-of-the-week-198-id997981.html","title":{"rendered":"Athlete of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This year Romania might again have two sides in the quarter finals of the Champions League in women\u2019s handball. In 2020, CSM Bucharest and SCM R\u00e2mnicu V\u00e2lcea went beyond the main groups, but the competition was stalled by the Covid 19 pandemic. In 2023, CSM Bucharest qualified directly for the group phase, while Rapid Bucharest outperformed Krim Ljubljana in the quarters\u2019 playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>None of them passed the quarters though. In the League\u2019s present edition, CSM ranked second in Group B and went directly into the quarters. Gloria Bistri\u0163a was the last in the group and had to play a tied double against the Danish side Ikast. On Sunday, the Romanians won the first match in Scandinavia 35 &#8211; 34. The 69 goals stand proof of the dramatic game. The Danish side had the upper hand most of the game and managed a five-goal difference some time into the game. However, Gloria made a great comeback and won.<\/p>\n<p>The Spanish player Danila So Delgado proved to be the game\u2019s most effective scorer, with 11 goals scored. Out of the Romanian side, winger Sonia Serafinceanu, scored eight goals, and for this reason Radio Romania International has designated her, Athlete of the Week.<\/p>\n<p>Sonia Mariana Serafinceanu was born in Hunedoara, central Romania, on July 25<sup>th<\/sup>, 1997. She took up handball at the local school club, and made her debut in the National League with Mure\u015ful T\u00e2rgu Mure\u015f. She also played for other valuable sides such as Cetate Deva, Universitatea Cluj, CSM Slatina and Minaur Baia Mare, but since 2021 she has been playing for Gloria Bistri\u0163a. Right winger Serafinceanu is one of the most valuable player in the Romanian handball with a noticeable counterattack play and also very effective on the six meter line.<\/p>\n<p>She made her debut with Romania\u2019s national handball side in 2019 in the 51<sup>st<\/sup> edition of the Carpathians Trophy held in Br\u0103ila and went to numerous European and world tournaments including in the world championship last year in Germany and the Netherlands where she scored 10 times.<\/p>\n<p>(bill)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This year Romania might again have two sides in the quarter finals of the Champions League in women\u2019s handball. In 2020, CSM Bucharest and SCM R\u00e2mnicu V\u00e2lcea went beyond the main groups, but the competition was stalled by the Covid 19 pandemic. In 2023, CSM Bucharest qualified directly for the group phase, while Rapid Bucharest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":997666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149357],"tags":[41018,40109,31145,41751,35982,37302,187993],"coauthors":[113302],"class_list":["post-997981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athlete-of-the-week","tag-athlete-of-the-week","tag-baia-mare","tag-csm","tag-gloria-bistrita","tag-minaur","tag-rapid-bucharest","tag-sonia-serafinceanu-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Athlete of the Week - Radio Romania International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rri.ro\/en\/athlete-of-the-week\/athlete-of-the-week-198-id997981.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Athlete of the Week - Radio Romania International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This year Romania might again have two sides in the quarter finals of the Champions League in women\u2019s handball. 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