2002 European Championships

Romania’s team wrapped up the European Championships in style, with the juniors winning 5 medals in the event finals. The star of the team was 15-year old Floarea Leonida who brought Romania’s only gold medal, by winning the beam final with a score of 9.437. She added a silver medal in the floor final and one in the all-around competition to complete her medal haul. The youngster will be promoted to the senior national team as soon as she becomes age eligible, and is expected to make Romania’s team for the 2003 Worlds, which will serve as a qualifying competition for the 2004 Olympic Games. Octavian Belu talked about Floarea saying that besides her obvious talent, her best quality is the fact that she is “mean -in the best sense of the word- in everything she does and has a strong desire to be the best.” Floarea lived up to Belu’s character description, showing no trace of shyness in her post-meet comments. “It was a very difficult competition, perhaps because it’s been the most important one so far. I expected to win this many medals and I’m sad I couldn’t win the gold medal on floor, too.”
The other junior gymnasts also turned in good performances, with Monica Rosu adding two bronze medals (V and FX) to Romania’s medal tally and Iuliana Chindea winning silver on vault.

Oana Petrovschi, Romania's lone entrant in the senior event, overcame a nervous start in qualifying to finish 5th in the all-around. She went on to win a bronze medal on vault in the event finals, performing much better than anyone expected. Head coach Octavian Belu said he was pleasantly surprised by Oana Petrovschi’s performance and very pleased with the junior team efforts. He refused to make any comments when it came to the “false passports scandal.” He explained he would only answer questions concerning the competition.

Meanwhile, Nadia Comaneci’s husband Bart Conner did not shy away from stating his opinion when it came to what happened in Romania. “That’s a big scandal only in Romania because no one here cares about it.” Asked to explain this apparent indifference towards falsifying gymnasts’ ages, he did not have a definite answer, but explained that several other countries are suspected of using the same tactic, hence the lack of reaction from Romania’s medal contenders.

In fact, Octavian Belu confirmed this attitude of indifference, saying no one in Patras asked him about the scandal back home, just like no one came up to him to ask why Romania did not field a Senior team. “the only one who I could say paid any attention to me was the Italian coach, who came over to say ‘grazie’ [thank you] after his team won the bronze medal.”

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