| NEW PERFORMANCES OBTAINED BY THE ROMANIAN GYMNASTS 07/04/2008 |
| (2008-04-09) |
| Last updated: 2008-04-09 17:12 EET |
At the European championship held in Clermont - Ferrand, France the Romanian women’s gymnastics squad emerged as champion in the teams competition, also coming first in the medal ranking, with a total of five medals won (two gold, two silver and one bronze), ahead of Russia and Germany. Sandra Izbasa, Steliana Nistor, Ana Maria Tamarjan, Gabriela Dragoi and Cerasela Patrascu are the new ‘golden talents” of the young generation of gymnasts coached by Nicolae Forminte.
The leader of the new generation, Sandra Izbasa reaped the European title in the floor event and became silver medalist in the beam contest. Steliana Nistor walked away with silver from the uneven bars event. But the surprise came from a gymnast who had just made her debut in such a top international competition, Ana Maria Tamarjan, who stepped onto the third step of the podium in the floor competition. Sandra Izbasa believes that winning this European title has lifted a heavy burden from the shoulders of the Romanian contenders.
The athlete went on to say that the Olympic gold they won in 2004 compelled the Romanians to continue the series of good results, but at that time they were juniors, and it takes some time to build up a strong team. We have built up our way to success brick by brick; now we have succeeded and we are feeling great, says the fresh European champion.
For coach Nicolae Forminte the victory is extremely important as it seals his position at the helm of the Romanian national gymnastics team, a good successor of Octavian Belu, who coached our gymnasts into winning the greatest results for the Romanian gymnastics in the past 25 years. The European championships in France were the last major test for our athletes in the run up to the Olympic Games in Beijing where they’ll have to compete against the strong teams of the United States and China.
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2025-04-03
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