Athlete of the Week

Hammer-thrower Bianca Ghelber has been designated Athlete of the Week by Radio Romania International

Florin Orban, 23.04.2024, 13:45

Romania presently boasts 79 athletes qualified for the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris. The latest athlete qualified for the prestigious event is hammer thrower Bianca Ghelber. She managed to clear the Olympic qualifying threshold in a contest held last weekend in Nairobi a performance that also brought her the ‘Athlete of the Week’ title, which is weekly given by Radio Romania International to the best Romanian performance.

Ghelber’s third throw in Nairobi measured 74 meters and 6 centimeters, a throw 6 centimeters longer than the threshold required by the World Athletics. She ended the competition on the second position after US challenger Janee’ Kassanavoid, the en titre vice-champion, whose throw measured 75 meters and 99 centimeters. Bianca has thus become the fifth Romanian athlete to go to Paris after marathon runners Delvine Meringor and Joan Chelimo, runner Andreea Miklos, in the 400 meter dash and Alina Rotaru-Kottmann in the long-jump event.

Bianca Ghelber, was born in Roman, a city situated in eastern Romania, on June 1^st 1990

In the early days of her career she was one of Romania’s most promising athletes as she won a series of world and European titles in junior competitions.

At the age of 18 she participated in her first Olympics in Beijing, where she ranked 19^th. At the London Olympics she ranked 22. She didn’t go to Rio but in Tokyo in 2020 she ranked sixth in the standings and the Romanian athletics Federation designated her best athlete of 2021.

In 2022, at the European Games in Munich, Ghelber won gold, a performance that represented the best result in her career and again the title of Romania’s best athlete that year. In 2023 she walked away with silver from the European Games in Poland and ranked 7^th at the World Championships in Budapest.

(bill)