The 2016 Sports Year

Florin Orban, 03.01.2017, 12:45

A year with ups and downs. It may sound like a cliché, but it’s all we can say about 2016. It was a year that brought European trophies for Romanian handball and volleyball, but also a year that saw the poorest performance of Romanian athletes in five decades, at the Summer Olympic Games.

Monica Niculescu was the first Romanian tennis player to win a major tennis tournament in 2016. Together with American tennis player Vania King, in January Monica Niculescu won the women’s doubles event of the WTA tournament in Shenzen. In the finals, they secured a 6-1, 6-4 win against the first-seeded pair, made of Yi-Fan Xu and Saisai Zheng.

The Australian Open followed, which is the first Grand Slam competition of the year, and where Simona Halep simply disappointed everyone. Halep was second seed in the tournament, but she was kicked out of the competition as early as the very first round, by a Chinese player with a much lower rating. Of the Romanians, the best placed was Horia Tecau, who reached as far as the mixed doubles final, together with Coco Vandeweghe from the US. In the semifinals they outplayed the Slovenian/Philippine pair made of Andreja Klepac and Treat Huey, 6-4, 6-4. However, Tecau and Vandeweghe were defeated in 3 sets by the Brazilian/Russian pair made of Bruno Soares and Elena Vesnina, 6-4, 4-6, 10-5.

In February, Romania’s women’s tennis team failed to qualify for the Fed Cup semifinals. In Cluj, in the quarterfinals, the team of the Czech Republic, who are the trophy holders, outperformed Romania 3-2.

However, it was also in February that in women’s handball 2 Romanian teams, HCM Baia Mare and CSM Bucharest, secured their qualification to the Champions League’s quarterfinals. That same month, Romania’s national rugby team added as many as 3 wins to its record sheet, outperforming Portugal, 39-14, Spain, 21-18 and Russia, 30-nil.

In March, the women’s epee team of the Bucharest-based club Steaua, made up of Ana Maria Popescu-Brânză, Simona Gherman, Simona Pop and Greta Vereş, won the European Epee Championship. In the finals, Steaua outperformed the Moscow Fencing Club, 45-38. Also in March, Romania’s greatest athlete of all time Iolanda Balas-Soter died, at the Elias Hospital in Bucharest, aged 79. Iolanda Balas Soter was an Olympic high-jump champion in Rome, in 1960 and in Tokyo, in 1964.

In April Romanian volleyball reported a historic achievement. For the first time ever, a Romanian women’s team won a European competition. Municipal Sports Club Bucharest walked away with the CEV Challenge Cup, after having secured a double win in the tie against the Turkish contenders Trabzon, 3-1 at home as well as away. It was the first final a Romanian women’s team played and won since 1974, when Dinamo Bucharest’s men’s team walked away with bronze in the Cup winners Cups. Also in April, at the European Weightlifting Championships hosted by the town of Foerde in Norway, the Romanian athletes won 15 medals, of which 4 gold. At the European Judo Championships held in Kazan, Russia, the Romanian delegation also won 3 bronze medals.

In May, the Romanian women’s handball team CSM Bucharest won the Champions League trophy. In the semifinals hosted by the Hungarian capital city Budapest, CSM outclassed the Macedonian team Vardar Skopje, 27-21. Then in the finals, CSM took on Hungarian side Gyor. The scoreboard showed 21-all after regular time. Two 5-minute overtimes followed, with the two teams holding each other to a 25-all draw. CSM eventually won the match after penalty shootouts, 29 – 26.

In tennis, the Madrid tournament was held in May, with two Romanians being among the winners. The women’s singles event was won by Simona Halep, who outperformed Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova, 6-2, 6-4. In the men’s doubles, two Romanians were pitted against each other, being part of separate pairs. Horia Teacau and the Dutch Jean Julien Rojer outplayed Florin Mergea and Rohan Bopanna (India), 6-4, 7-6.

The headline-grabbing event in June was the European Football Championship in France. Playing in group A, Romania lost to France, 1-2 and Albania, nil-1. Then Romania drew against Switzerland, 1-all. Also in June, Romania won 4 medals at the European Fencing Championships in Torun, Poland. Simona Gherman won the gold in the individual epee event, while Ana-Maria Popescu, whom she defeated in the final, walked away with silver. Romania’s women’s epee and men’s saber teams won the bronze medals.