Radio Romania International Sports Club

Romanian gymnastics seems to have been marred by the gymnasts' constant lacklustre performance in recent years. The national team no longer qualified to the Olympic games, while the medal tally in world and European competitions has been unavoidably low. For instance, in the 2022 edition of the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool, the Romanian gymnasts walked home with no medal. Romanian delegation's best result back then was Gabriel Burtanete's coming in 4th in the vault final. Gabriel needed only two tenths of a point to step onto a step of the podium. In the all-round event final, Gabriel Burtanete came in 23rd. In the women's version of the championships, the only Romanian gymnast to have advanced to the final was Ana Maria Barbosu, who in the all-round event came in 20th.

The 2023 competition season, however, had a more auspicious start. In the FIG Apparatus World Cup held in Qatar's Doha, the Romanian Sabrina Voinea won two gold medals, in the beam and floor events. Sabrina was granted 13.766 points in the beam final, outclassing the runner-up gymnast Ana Lascevska of Ukraine by more than four tenths of a point. In the floor event, Sabrina's win was even clearer. Sabrina was granted 13.600 points, that if seven tenths of a point more than silver medalist, Japan's Chiaki Hatakeda.

It was the first international seniors' competition for 15-year-old Sabrina; her performance is all the more impressive, given she is still very young. Sabrina will now need to confirm her stunning debut performance in an international competition at the coming European Gymnastics Championships, to be held in Turkyie's Antalya between  April 11 and 16. Sabrina's trainer is her mother Camelia Voinea, a former gymnast and a silver medalist in the Olympic Games in Seoul, in 1988, in the nations' competition. (EN)