The first part of Team Romania, in Paris

Most of the members of Team Romania reached Paris to participate in the Olympic Games.

Leyla Cheamil, 22.07.2024, 14:00

82 of the 107 athletes who make up Romania’s Olympic team at the 2024 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, arrived in Paris on Sunday, with an aircraft recently renamed “Nadia Comăneci” in honor of the Romanian gymnast, nicknamed “the goddess from Montreal”. Flying to France were the rowing, swimming, artistic gymnastics, table tennis, water polo, boxing, cycling, fencing, yachting and archery teams.

The President of the National Agency for Sports, the former rower Elisabeta Lipă is here with details: “If you ask me how these three years have flown, I don’t know what to tell you, but now the time has come for the departure, the time for the Romanian delegation to take flight at the Olympic Games. I have the same emotions as when I was competing. The athletes have our full support.”

Welcomed upon landing in Paris by the Romanian ambassador to France, Ioana Bivolaru, the athletes and coaches received their credentials, then headed for their accommodation. Only the swimmer David Popovici and the rowers are staying outside the Olympic Village.

Here is David Popovici: “It’s so hard to qualify for the Olympic Games. I mean, everyone talks about performances, about medals and that’s normal, but only getting qualification for the Games is actually such an impressive performance. And I wanted to use this moment to congratulate all the athletes, in fact to congratulate all of us who are here. As to all the expectations that either the media or the public have from us, we are athletes and we have goals, we don’t follow expectations. Good luck to us and we hope you will enjoy the Games!”

In the following days, Romania’s representatives in the canoeing, athletics, weightlifting, tennis, wrestling, rhythmic gymnastics, judo and triathlon sports disciplines will also arrive in Paris. Bernadette Szocs, a table tennis player in the world’s top 10, is among the athletes with a high chance of winning medals: “I tried to correct absolutely everything I knew was missing. I have done my best. I am very satisfied and proud of what I did in preparation for the Olympic Games. Now I can’t wait to start doing my best and try to obtain the long-awaited Olympic medal.”

The athletes present in Paris have the duty to continue the story of the first medal that Romania won at the Olympic Games, in 1924, also in the capital of France, said the president of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee, Mihai Covaliu, quote: “I can’t help thinking that, 100 years ago, also in Paris, we opened this path with a bronze medal, and we have the pleasant mission of continuing this beautiful story, of enriching Romania’s treasury with more shiny Olympic medals and of enjoying an edition of the Olympic Games at the highest level” said Mihai Covaliu.

The Olympic Games in Paris will begin on July 26, and rowers Ionela and Marius Cosmiuc, husband and wife, will bear the Romanian flag at the opening ceremony. The Games will end on August 11. (LS)