Review of Romania’s performance at the Rio Summer Olympics

The Rio 2016 Olympics has come to end. Here is a review of the Romanian athletes performance.

Florin Orban, 22.08.2016, 14:12

The bottom line of Romania’s performance at the Rio Summer Olympics consists in five medals, of which one gold, one silver and three bronze, taking the 47th place in the Olympic medal table. It emerged better placed than Bulgaria or Ireland, but behind Uzbekistan and Slovenia. It had a poorer performance in these Games than in all the previous Olympic Games of the past 60 years, similar to that of 1952, held in Helsinki, when the Romanian delegation got only 4 medals of which one gold.

Let us now take a look back at Romania’s participation in the Rio Olympics. The women’s epee team, made up of Ana Maria Popescu, Simona Pop, Simona Gherman and Loredana Dinu, world and European champions in many competitions, have brought the Romanian fencing delegation the first Olympic title in the team competition. Although in the individual event the athletes had a modest performance, they proved their mettle in the team event. This performance is the more impressive as it occurs at the end of their career for almost all the athletes in the Romanian epee team. Besides Simona Pop, born in 1988, the other three athletes are over 30, and are also the winners of many medals in top competitions.

The silver medal was won by the Romanian tennis pair Florin Mergea/ Horia Tecău. The two lost the final to the Spanish pair Marc Lopez and Rafael Nadal, 2-6, 6-3, 4-6. In the decisive match, they managed a break at 3-3, but the Spaniards bounced back and won three games in a row. Nevertheless, the Romanian tennis delegation brought Romania its first Olympic medal.

The first bronze medal for Romania at the Rio 2016 was won by weightlifter Gabriel Sâncrǎian, who managed to lift a total of 390 kg, after lifting 173 kg in the snatch and 217 kg in the clean and jerk, surpassing many of the favorite athletes in the 85 kg category. Denis Ulanov of Kazakhstan also lifted 390 kg, but the Romanian athlete was put at an advantage by his body weight, as he weighed 600 grams less than his runner-up.

In rowing, the Romanian delegation won a bronze medal in the women’s coxed eight event. After failing to win a medal in London four years ago, and after the poor results obtained in the world championship, the women’s coxed eight crew brought Romania an unexpected bronze medal.

Also in the Rio Olympics, Albert Saritov won a second bronze medal for Romania in the wrestling freestyle event, in the 97 kg category. Saritov is a native of Daghestan, he is of Chechen origin, and has received the Romanian citizenship this year.

A big disappointment was the women’s handball team that did not manage to make it to the group stage. The Romanian handballers had a bad start. They lost to Angola and Brazil, defeated Montenegro and Spain but were thrashed by Norway.

The Romanian gymnastics delegation also failed to win medals. Veteran Marian Dragulescu in came 4th in the vault event, on a par with the bronze medallist, Japanese Kenzo Shirai. The Romanian gymnast had an average of 15.449 points, just like the Japanese, but the mark for execution was higher for the Japanese for both vaults.

All in all, we can conclude that the results of the Romanian delegation in Rio 2016 reflect the current situation of Romanian sports. Under financed, neglected in school curricula, with less children willing to get involved in professional sports, Romanian sports are waiting for a miracle to return to the place they once held at world level. Now Romania is only in the 47th position in the Olympic medal table.