The Athlete of the Week –Athlete Marian Oprea

The first leg of the National Indoor Athletics Championships was held in Bucharest last weekend. Participating were 254 athletes representing 64 clubs.

Florin Orban, 22.01.2013, 13:45

Not all Romania’s top-notch athletes took part in the competition, since such runners as Angela Morosanu, Mirela Lavric and Ancuta Bobocel are still undergoing their specific winter training.

The season may still be in its early days, yet a string of athletes had time to prove themselves, putting on remarkable performances. Worth mentioning here is the hop, step and jump athlete Marian Oprea’s performance. He had a bracing comeback to the competition season with a jump of 18 meters and 80 centimeters. For the early 2013, it is a remarkable performance, which prompted Radio Romania International to designate Marian Oprea the Athlete of the Week.

Marian Oprea was born in Pitesti, Southern Romania,on June 6, 1982. In 2000 he became juniors’ Olympic champion in Santiago de Chile. In 2002 Marian Oprea walked home with a silver medal he had won at the European Indoor Championships in Vienna. Yet the peak of his career was marked by the runner-up position Marian Oprea snatched at the Athens Olympics in 2004, when the Romanian managed a jump of 17 meters and 55 centimeters. Marian maintained his position among Europe’s and the world’s best athletes, although he sustained quite a few injuries throughout the years. His most recent notable performance occurred in 2011, when Marian Oprea walked away with silver at the European Indoor Championships in Paris.

Because of a health problem, Marian Oprea failed to participate in the London Olympics last summer. He will come back to the top-flight international competitions in March at the European Indoor Championships in Goteborg, Sweden.

Worth mentioning at this point is the fact that this week, again on Friday and Saturday, the second leg of the National Indoor Athletics Championships is scheduled.