Athlete of the week

The Turkish town of Mersin late last week played host to the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships. In the nations' competition presence was scarce because of the ongoing sanitary crisis. The Romanian delegation was made of four complete teams competing in the juniors but also in the seniors' version of the contest. In the juniors' competition, Romania reigned supreme and the Romanian gymnasts won all gold medals. Things were a little bit more difficult for our senior gymnasts. In the qualifiers, Romania was at the top of the table but in the teams' finals Ukraine came in first, while the Romanians had to make do with silver. The gold medals went to the Romanian gymnasts who competed in the apparatus pieces finals. Larisa Iordache came in first in the beam and floor events and won silver in the vault event. 

For her noteworthy performance in Mersin, Radio Romania International designated Larisa the Athlete of the week.

In the beam event Larisa was way above her challengers. However, in the floor event, the gold medal went to Larisa Iordache as the result of the judges' scoring being contested. Before Larisa proved her mettle in the competition, Turkey's Göksu Üçtaş was the top performer, with 13,100 points. Larisa's execution was more difficult and her performance was better, yet the Romanian came in 2nd, with 50 thousandths points less than Üçtaş. Double-check revealed that the difficulty score for Larisa's execution was flawed from the beginning, so the Romanian got 13, 450 points, thus stepping onto the first step of the podium.

Larisa Iordache was born on 19 June, 1996 in Bucharest. She took up high-level performance gymnastics with the Cetate Deva National Sports College. Then Larisa was officially included in Romania's Olympic pool of regulars. She made her debut in the top-level seniors' contest in 2012 when she won three medals in the European Championships, gold in the floor event and in the nations' competition and silver in the beam event. In the London Olympics Larisa Iordache won silver in the nations' competition. In 2013, at the European Championships in Moscow, Larisa won gold in the beam event, while in the all-around event she won silver in beam and floor events. Also in 2013, in the World Championships held in Anvers, Larisa Iordache walked away with bronze in the floor event. In 2014 she won gold in the European Championships in Sofia, in the beam event and in the nations' competition. Larisa also won silver in the beam event and bronze in the vault event. Larisa Iordache's blazing trail includes the silver medal she won in in Nanning, in the all-around and beam events, also in 2014, while in 2015, in the World Championships in Glasgow, Larisa walked away with the bronze medal she won in the all-around event. 2016 was not that fruitful for Larisa Iordache because she sustained an injury. She secured her comeback in 2017, when she won bronze in the beam event as part of the European Championships held in Romania's Cluj. Larisa Iordache won gold in the all-around and floor events in the World University Games held in Taipei. A couple of surgical operations she underwent kept Larisa away from competition for about three years.