RRI Sports Club

Gymnastics

Florin Orban, 16.03.2022, 13:44

The Romanian Gymnastics Federation
made an unprecedented announcement last weekend. It said it no
longer affords to finance the participation of Romanian gymnasts in
the European and world championships taking place this year, two
competitions that are very important to the qualification for the
next Olympic Games to be hosted by Paris in 2014. In a message posted
on its official Facebook page, the Federation blames the situation on
the fact that funding from the ministry for sports is 35% lower this
year compared with last year. In this context, the Federation is
calling on national and international donations.

Carmencita
Constantin, the president of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, told
Agerpres news agency that the situation is truly serious: The
return to the ranks of the world gymnastics elite is not possible if
athletes cannot take part in the competitions held by the
International Gymnastics Federation. And at the moment Romania’s
gymnastics teams are unable to go ahead with their competition
schedule because of a lack of funds.

In
recent years, Romanian gymnastics has, in fact, seen its poorest
results in history. Romanian gymnastics teams did not even qualify
for the last two editions of the Olympic Games, and athletes have not
won a single medal in individual competitions. With the allocation of
funds by the ministry for sports for 2022 taking into account the
results obtained in international competitions, gymnastics therefore
saw its budget cut compared with previous years.

The
minister for sports Eduard Novak explained on Facebook that a budget
adjustment will be made in June, and the Gymnastics Federation will
receive some additional funding. As for long-term solutions aimed at
restoring Romanian gymnastics anything resembling its former glory,
the minister mentioned the National Strategy for Sports, which is in
the process of being drafted. He says the strategy will seek to
develop and consolidate a network of regional centres that will
improve performance standards in this sport, based on studies, human
resources and experience rather than luck and a handful of
exceptional talent.

The
immediate problem of gymnasts’ participation in this year’s
competitions still remains, however. Even if the federation somehow
managed to fund their trips, there is little hope that they would do
well in these competitions. In the absence of top specialists, who
prefer to work abroad, Romanian gymnastics is in free fall. The
current management of the Federation, who were appointed based on
ambitious promises to consolidate the technical team, have not done
much to stop this demise and asking for donations won’t make up for
a lack of strategy for marketing and attracting sponsors. (CM)