THE WEEK IN SPORTS

In the OG in Tokyo, Romanians Catalin Chirila and Victor Mihalachi qualified on Monday for the semifinals of the 1,000 m double canoe event. They came in third in the first quarter finals, with a timing of 3 minutes, 51 seconds. The Romanians will compete Tuesday morning in the first semifinal, with the first four teams qualifying for the finals also scheduled for Tuesday. Catalin Chirila and Victor Mihalachi won a bronze medal this year in the European championships in Poznan. Mihalachi has under his belt two world titles in this event, won in 2010 and 2014. In terms of kayak-canoe, sor far Romania has 34 Olympic medals, of which 10 gold, 10 silver, and 14 bronze. Romanian rowers have not made it to the podium in the OG since 21 years ago in Sydney, in 2000, when Florin Popescu and Mitica Pricop won the gold in the 1,000 m double canoe event and the bronze in the 500 m.

Florin Orban, 02.08.2021, 19:12

Romania is back on the female tennis world map, because the city of Cluj hosts this week a WTA tournament with 235,238 dollars total prize money. The main favorite is French player Alize Cornet, who first plays Mayar Sherif of Egypt.

And now for football. Last week, games were held towards the European cups. CFR Cluj qualified to the third preliminary tour of the Champions League, after defeating the Gibraltar team the Lincoln Red Imps, 2-1 away, and 2-nil at home. However, all three Romanian teams in the new continental competition, the European Conference League, have been eliminated. FCSB was bested by Kazakh team Shakhtior Karaganda, then Sepsi Sf. Gheorghe was defeated by Slovak team Spartak Trnava, while Universitatea Craiova was eliminated by the Albanian team Laci.

Over the weekend, games were held counting towards the third stage of the Romanian first league championship. On Friday, both games were ties. Gaz Metan Medias and FC Arges had a 2-all tie, while Rapid Bucharest and Farul Constanta held each other to a blank score. FC Voluntari won at home 2-1 against FC U Craiova, and in Cluj, CFR had a 1-nil victory against Chindia from Targoviste. On Sunday, FC Botosani won 2-1 the away game against Universitatea Craiova, then, in Arad, UTA and FCSB ties 1-all. On Monday, the last two games of the stage pitted Sepsi Sfântu Gheorghe against CS Mioveni, and Dinamo București against Academica of Clinceni. The tables are topped by Cluj, with 9 points, followed by Rapid and FC Botosani, with 7 each.