Athlete of the Week – Gymnast Ana Maria Bărbosu

At the latest European Gymnastics Championship one athlete won four medals for Romania, a first since 2013 when Larisa Iordache compelled international recognition in the aforementioned competition hosted by Moscow

Florin Orban, 03.06.2025, 13:51

In 1975 Romania became a super-power in women’s gymnastics thanks to Nadia Comaneci’s indisputable victories at the European championship in Norway.

At the Montreal Olympics in 1976 Nadia proved her value as the world’s best gymnast, a position that she maintained for years.

At that time Romania’s women gymnasts were dominating the international competitions fighting for medals only with their counterparts from the former USSR.

The years passed and the world’s gymnastics saw the emergence of other super-powers, such as China and the USA, whose athletes proved to be a force to be reckoned with mainly in the third millennium. However, champions such as Cătălina Ponor or Sandra Izbaşa managed to keep the Romanian gymnastics at the top.

Difficult years followed after 2015 when Romania’s gymnastics team failed to qualify for the Olympics of Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2020. It was present in Paris last year though and the athlete with the greatest contribution to that qualification was Ana Maria Bărbosu. She also managed an excellent performance in the floor contest and after a legal struggle, she reaped the only medal of the Romanian delegation in Paris, bronze in the floor event.

Last week, Ana Maria Bărbosu again confirmed her value. At the European Championship in Leipzig, Germany, she won gold in the floor event, silver in the beam contest and she came third in the all round and uneven bars. She narrowly missed a fifth medal with the Romanian side, which, unfortunately, came fourth in the nations’ ranking. For her performance, Radio Romania International has designated Ana Maria Barbosu athlete of the week.

Ana Maria Bărbosu was born on July 27, 2006, in Focşani, eastern Romania. She first compelled international recognition as a junior athlete in the 2020 European Championship in Mersin, Turkyie, where she won gold in all events including with her team. As a senior athlete, she obtained the best result for the Romanian delegation, a fourth position in the floor event at the European Championships in Munich 2022. At the European Championship in Turkyie in 2023, she was part of the Romanian team who came fifth, thus qualifying for the World Championship in Anvers, Belgium, the same year. In Anvers, with Ana in the lineup, the Romanian team came tenth, thus qualified for the Olympic Games for the first time in the past 12 years.

(bill)