Sports Weekend

A roundup of the most important sporting events

Florin Orban, 14.06.2024, 13:45

At the European Kayak-Canoe Championships, hosted these days by Szeged, Hungary, Romanian athlete Cătălin Chirilă qualified, on Thursday, to the 500m and 1000m single-canoe finals. In the 1000m race, which is also an Olympic event, the athlete enrolled at Steaua sports club won the first series, with a time of 3.53 seconds, the best in the competition. In the 500m race, Chirilă finished third in the second series, ahead of Moldovan Serghei Tarnovschi and German Conrad Scheibner. The finals of the two events will take place on Saturday. Chirilă will also compete in the 5,000m race, scheduled for Sunday. In the men’s double canoe race, Ilie Sprîncean and Oleg Nuţă qualified to the semi-finals of the 200, 500 and 1,000 meter races. All of the aforementioned athletes have secured qualification to the Olympic Games in Paris. At the last continental competition, namely at the European Games hosted by Poland in 2023, Chirilă won the silver medal in the 500m single canoe race.

Stuttgart, Germany, is these days hosting a men’s grass tennis tournament with total prizes standing at 735 thousand EUR. In the doubles competition, the pair made up of the Romanian tennis player Victor Cornea and the Chinese Zhizhen Zhang reached the quarterfinals. However, the two missed the chance to advance to the semi-finals after losing on Thursday to the German pair Constantin Frantzen / Hendrik Jebens, 7-6, 4-6, 10-2. The Romanian-Chinese pair secured a 6,810-EUR check and 45 ATP doubles points.

The Romanian tennis player Andreea Mitu on Thursday qualified to the quarter-finals of the ITF tournament in Biarritz, France, offering 100,000 USD in total prizes. In the round of 16, Mitu ousted the top seed, Panna Udvardy of Hungary, 6-1, 6-3. The Romanian player had lost to Udvardy at the end of April, in Wiesbaden, in the first round, 6-1, 2-6, 6-0.

The European Swimming Championships continue in Belgrade this weekend. The competition started with the artistic and synchronized swimming events, where Romania has no representatives. 7 Romanian swimmers have enrolled in speed races and 4 athletes in jumping events. Romania’s highest hopes are pinned on David Popovici, the defending European champion in the 100m and 200m freestyle events. The Romanian athletes will enter the competition next week. (VP)