Romania at the Olympic games

romania at the olympic games Romania's worthy athletes of the past

One of Romania's greatest sports competitors, on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020 will celebrate his 88th birthday anniversary. He is two-time Olympic champion, former canoeist Leon Rotman.


Leon Rotman was born in Bucharest. He was the fourth child in the family of carpenter Iosif Rotman. While still an apprentice with the Timpuri Noi plants, 15-year old Leon took up training with the Flacara sports club's wrestling team, and back then Leon earned his place among the hopefuls of the 67-kilogram category. In 1952, when he was on the shore of Floreasca lake, Leon Rotman discovered the rowing sports disciplines. Shortly afterwards, he became a member of the kayak-canoe section of Dinamo Bucharest sports club.


Leon Rotman was very quick to persuade his coaches his place was in a men's singles boat. It didn't take Leon too much time to win several awards at national level, so in 1956 he was selected for the team that represented Romania in the Melbourne Olympics.


Of the four gold medals awarded in Melbourne, three went to Romanian rowers, who outperformed their challengers from Russia and Hungary, at that time the countries that dominated rowing sports disciplines.


Leon Rotman's first win occurred in the 10,000m race. The Romanian had some problems registering for the race since his boat had a slight twisting, which was against the rules according to standards. He was given another boat, which also had a problem, since it was longer than the officially accepted boat. The latter canoe was simply cut with a hacksaw, then, as soon as the race started, Rotman, through his force and skill, outperformed the favorites to winning the 10,000m race, the Hungarians Janos Parti and Istvan Hernek, as well as and the then Soviet rower Genadiy Bukharin. Rotman's main challenger, the Hungarian Janos Parti was 80 meters behind the Romanian at the end of the race.


In the 1000m race, Leon Rotman ranked as favorite and confirmed the predictions, this time outperforming Hernek. The bronze medal went to Bukharin, just like in the 10,000m race.


In Melbourne, the third gold medal of the Romanian delegation went to Alexe Dumitru and Simion Ismailciuc, who won the 1000m double canoe sprint race.


At the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960, Leon Rotman won bronze in the men's canoe single 1000m race. It was the only medal the Romanian delegation walked away with, at that time.


(translation by Eugen Nasta)



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Publicat: 2020-07-21 13:45:00
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