Athlete of the Week: Ștefania Uță

New outstanding results for the young generation of athletes in Romanian athletics

Florin Orban, 12.08.2025, 13:45

The European Athletics Championships for athletes under 20 years of age ended on Sunday in Tampere, Finland. The delegation representing Romania won two medals: gold in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, won by Ștefania Uță, and silver in the triple jump, won by Daria Vrînceanu. Following these results, Radio Romania International named Ștefania Uță Athlete of the Week.
In Finland, Uță won the 400-meter hurdles final in a close race. She beat France’s Meta Tumba, who took second place on the podium, by just one hundredth of a second. Third place went to Viola Hambidge of Estonia, who crossed the finish line more than a second behind the winner. Uță’s time of 55 seconds and 55 hundredths is a new competition record, the best European performance in this age category, and a personal best for the athlete.

Alexandra Ștefania Uță was born on October 6, 2007, in Râmnicu Vâlcea (center). She started athletics at the age of 12 in her hometown, where she currently trains with Alina Enescu, a coach from a family with a tradition in Romanian athletics. In 2023, at not even 16 years old, she became the national senior champion in the 400-meter hurdles, a title she still held in 2024. She has achieved many successes in junior and youth competitions, and at the 2024 European Senior Championships in Rome, she was the youngest competitor. She is considered by the athletics world to be the most valuable successor to Ionela Târlea, double European champion in the 400-meter hurdles, an event in which she won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004. It is worth noting that Târlea is also from Vâlcea, more precisely from Horezu, and her coaches were the late Viorica and Octavian Enescu, the parents of the person who trains Ștefania Uță today. (MI)
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