Fewer Romanian athletes in the Tokyo Olympics

Romania's women's handball team failed to qualify to the Tokyo Olympic Games

Ştefan Stoica, 22.03.2021, 13:50

Romanian football fans have been quite vocal about the subpar performances
of Romanian footballers in the last two decades. Their point of reference is
the 1990s, when Romania took part in every World Cup, managing in 1994, in the
United States, to reach the quarterfinals. It is the most notable result of
Romanian football. In turn, handball fans are equally disappointed with the
defeat of Romania’s men’s team, a four-time world champion, in the 2022
European Championship preliminaries in Bucharest. The Romanian team holds only
mathematical chances of qualifying, but have managed a historic
counterperformance of only drawing against Kosovo. Losing five goals behind to
a team whose federation was set up just a few years ago is humiliating, Radu
Voinea, a world champion in 1974 and a medalist at the Olympic Games in 1972,
1976 and 1980 said. Humiliating, but not painful, says Alexandru Dedu, the
president of the Romanian Handball Federation, who is getting a lot of
criticism these days. Another former handball legend, Vasile Stângă, two-time
bronze medalist at the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games, said that, if the Romanian
women’s team also misses the chance to qualify to the Olympic Games, then the
whole Federation leadership should be sacked.

A week after the embarrassing
defeat of the men’s team, the women’s team also ranked last in the tournament
held in Montenegro, also involving the participation of the host country and
Norway. People are already talking about a failed generation, that of the
32-year-old left wing Cristina Neagu, who has been designated best handballer
in the world on several occasions. With Neagu as captain, Romania hasn’t won a
single trophy in the last decade, despite the fact that women’s handball is
still breathing. Women’s clubs are still getting good results in European
inter-club competitions, and the Romanian national women’s team is faring
decently, while men’s handball is in intensive care. The absence of handballers
have stretched thin Romania’s delegation to the Tokyo Olympics. Chances of
getting a medal are also reduced significantly.

In other news, the four
Romanian athletes who this weekend competed in the pre-Olympic Greek-Roman
wrestling tournament in Budapest, were knocked out in the preliminary rounds.
To qualify to the Tokyo Olympics, our athletes needed to reach the finals. So
far, only Alina Vuc will represent Romania in the 50-kg category in the Olympic
wrestling event, after having won silver at the World Championships in
Kazakhstan in 2019. Romanian wrestlers have one last chance of qualifying to
the Tokyo Olympic Games at the world pre-Olympic tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria,
to be held over May 6-9.