Looking for a Second Vault

Original article was published on September 26th in ProSport

It’s been five months since the Romanian men’s gymnastics team won four gold medals in Patras, along with a silver and bronze. Marian Drăgulescu helped the team win the gold medal, along with his individual gold medal on vault and a bronze on floor. He’s now training alongside Marius Urzică, Ioan Suciu and Dan Potra, in Sfîntu Gheorghe while the national training center Lia Manoliu is undergoing construction work. His main goals are the Apparatus World Championships in Debrecen, Hungary.

GS: Working hard, Marian?
MD: Yes, I have to. Nationals are up next, followed by some Grand Prix competitions and Worlds in Hungary. Based on my performance at Nationals, I know what I’ll do at Worlds.
GS: Which events will you compete?
MD: Since this is an apparatus competition, I’ll only compete on floor and vault, where I’m hoping to medal. I’ll take care of the rest next year.
GS: Any predictions?
MD: I want to medal on floor. As for vault I couldn’t tell you much because I haven’t picked my second vault yet. Almost everyone has two 10.0 Start value vaults, but I’m still looking for my second vault. Once you get a feel for it, you can learn a new vault in just three days.
GS: Otherwise, you’re just busy with training and conditioning?
MD: Not quite. We’ll watch TV sometimes, most of the time when soccer is on. I was very happy for National and Rapid’s results [they won their first round matches in the UEFA Cup], even though I’m not a soccer fanatic. I don’t have a favorite team. But I like playing soccer, especially as part of our warm-up for training sessions.
GS: How do you like Sfîntu Gheorghe?
MD: We’re in the gym training all day, so we don’t go out too much. Every once in a while we’ll go out, but there’s not much to say about a city you can walk across in 5 minutes. Besides, it’s bit cold around here.
GS: Do people speak Hungarian a lot?
MD: When you go into a shop and buy something, they’ll talk to you in Hungarian first, but they’ll help you even if you only speak Romanian. In any case, since the city’s small, they found out the national gymnastics team is coming and people recognize us.

328 is the COP number for the skill named after Marian Drăgulescu. The vault is a double tuck summersault with a 180 degree turn (double front half turn). He first performed the vault at an official competition in the US, causing problems for the judges. “They asked me what the start value of the vault is in Europe. I told them 10.0 and that’s what they scored it from,” recalls coach Dan Grecu. Drăgulescu is the first male gymnast from Romania to have a skill named after him in the current code of points.

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