Athlete of the Week on RRI – Rower Simona Radiş

Simona Radiş had yet another stellar performance at the Under-23 European Championships

Florin Orban, 07.09.2021, 13:45

In recent years, Romania has
returned to the elite of world rowing. At the Olympic Games hosted by Tokyo
this year, our rowers ranked 4th in the medal standings of the
rowing competitions, being the best-performing European team in the event. The value
of Romanian rowing was once against confirmed last week at the European Under-23
Rowing Championships hosted by Kruszwica, Poland. Romania ranked 1st
in the medal standings, with ten medals, 5 gold and 5 silver. The European gold
medals went to the four plus one, the coxless four, the single-scull and the eight
crews in the women’s competition, and to the men’s coxless four crew. In the women’s
single-scull event, the new European champion, Simona Radiş, broke the world
youth record, which is why we have designated her Athlete of the Week.

Simona Radiş is the defending
Olympic champion in the women’s double-scull event, a title won in Tokyo this
year alongside Ancuța Bodnar. She was born on April 5, 1999 in Botoşani,
northern Romania. She is currently enrolled at Steaua Bucharest sports club.
She achieved the best performances of her career alongside Bodnar, with whom
she has paired in women’s double-scull events for the last two years. Their
first notable performance came in 2019, in early June, when they won silver at
the European Championships hosted by Lucerne, Switzerland. Then, in September,
at the World Championships in Linz, Austria, they also won silver. At the 2020
European Rowing championship hosted by Poznan, Poland, the two won gold, a feat
they repeated at the World Championships in Varese, Italy, hosted earlier this
year. Then, at the Tokyo Olympics, they won the only gold medal won by the Romanian
delegation, which puts them in leading position to be designated Athletes of
the Year 2021 (VP)