Radio Romania International Sports Club

Artistic gymnastics

Florin Orban, 08.03.2023, 13:45

Romanian gymnastics
seems to have been marred by the gymnasts’ constant lacklustre performance in
recent years. The national team no longer qualified to the Olympic games, while the
medal tally in world and European competitions has been unavoidably low. For instance,
in the 2022 edition of the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool, the
Romanian gymnasts walked home with no medal. Romanian delegation’s best result
back then was Gabriel Burtanete’s coming in 4th in the vault final. Gabriel
needed only two tenths of a point to step onto a step of the podium. In the all-round
event final, Gabriel Burtanete came in 23rd. In the women’s version
of the championships, the only Romanian gymnast to have advanced to the final
was Ana Maria Barbosu, who in the all-round event came in 20th.

The 2023 competition season, however, had a
more auspicious start. In the FIG Apparatus World Cup held in Qatar’s
Doha, the Romanian Sabrina Voinea won two gold medals, in the beam and floor
events. Sabrina was granted 13.766 points in the beam final, outclassing the runner-up
gymnast Ana Lascevska of Ukraine by more than four tenths of a point. In the
floor event, Sabrina’s win was
even clearer. Sabrina was granted 13.600 points, that if seven tenths of a point
more than silver medalist, Japan’s Chiaki Hatakeda.

It was the first international seniors’ competition
for 15-year-old Sabrina; her performance is all the more impressive, given
she is still very young. Sabrina will now need to confirm her stunning debut
performance in an international competition at the coming European Gymnastics Championships,
to be held in Turkyie’s Antalya between April 11 and 16. Sabrina’s trainer is
her mother Camelia Voinea, a former gymnast and a silver medalist in the Olympic
Games in Seoul, in 1988, in the nations’ competition. (EN)