Marius Urzică named athlete of the Year for 2001

Romanian newspaper Adevărul and sponsoring company Net Consulting gave Marius Urzică an Excellence Award for all his athletic performances. This is the 6th year the award is handed out, and Urzică was being recognized for his great results, but also for being a model citizen. The ceremony was held in Bucharest. Besides Urzică, team members Dan Potra, Marian Dragulescu, Ioan Suciu and Constantin Covaci also attended the ceremony, along with head coach Dan Grecu and several reporters and marketing consultants from Net Consulting.

Adrian Ursu, Adevarul’s editor in chief talked about the gymnast. “2001 was a year when the winner was more than deserving of the award, and I confess it was very easy for us to decide it was meant for Marius Urzică. “ He added Marius is a “a complete perfectionist, trying to impress through everything he does. Marius always had something special to offer us, such as the past couple of days during the European Championships in Patras. Marius’ success and that of the other guys, who are also here today managed to bring us so much joy and attract attention to men’s gymnastics –a sport that finally managed to prove its worth and reach its potential.”

Net Consulting’s representative added that “I am extremely emotional being here among the gymnasts, because, despite being very young, they are already well-known, serving as role-models for many in Romania. Marius Urzică was an inspired choice and we’re glad that our company along with Adevărul could offer this award, because many of Marius Urzică’s qualities are also qualities our company prides itself on: dedication, hard work, team spirit, perseverance and competitive fire.”

Marius was pleasantly surprised by everything that was said about him and managed to prove he was a perfect choice for the award by his brief acceptance speech. “I want to start off by thanking Adevărul and the Net Consulting company and add that this award doesn’t just belong to me, but to the entire team, because if we weren’t so close during competitions, my results wouldn’t have been so good. I also want to thank Adevărul for writing so many nice things about us, and we want to offer you the opportunity to write many other good things about us in the future.”

Unfortunately, the gymnasts also received some bad news to go along with the recognition. Dinamo Bucharest celebrated its 54th anniversary. However, when it came time to hand out the prize money for the recently crowned European men’s champions, the amount of money was well under the sum the gymnasts were promised just a few days ago by the club President. The club promised the gymnasts the prize money would total 600 million lei ($20,000), but when coach Adrian Sandu and his gymnasts received the money, it was only 340 million lei ($11,300). “There’s been a problem with our prize money because we were promised half the amount we would receive from the YSD, and the Sports Minister doubled our prize money for the gold medals,” said Marius Urzica. The gymnast had another reason to be upset. "I was expecting a promotion to the rank of major, since I am a captain now, but that didn’t happen. I was led to believe, though, that they are working on my case.” Dinamo, who is officially sponsored by the Police force, only promoted one of the European medallists, Dan Potra. He is now a second lieutenant.

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