Romania

[rlayt]

Let’s talk Romania and anything related. AFAIK It has been fairly quiet in the gymnaverse about their gymnasts during this downtime and we are waiting on results if appeals that affect Ana and Sabrina. In the meanwhile I’m sure Romania is buzzing amongst the different factions which always seem to be working against each other.

Will ponor continue to act like a poor athlete rep in favor of the Voinea contingent?

 

[irichluck21]

I an curious to see what happens for Romania 2025-2028. We all figured it would be an almost impossible comeback for them after missing out on 2016 and 2020. They had almost no depth and gymnasts would retire suddenly. They managed to rise like a phoenix (hence the Paris Leos) and finished a remarkable 7th as a team.

What will the future bring for the team? If they can hold onto their Paris group headed toward Los Angeles they have a very good chance at making another team final.

 

[RedBirdie]

How are the Romanian juniors looking? Not sure how much longer Sabrina's body will hold up, given that Camilla seems determined to break her in half. Plus, I assume they are losing Lilia Cosman--I've not seen any indication that she plans to forgeo attending Michigan State. She had been splitting her time between Romania and the US, and it sounded really hard on her and her parents.

 

[irichluck21]

Cosman I was curious about as well since she is attending MSU. But I wonder if she would take a gap year for 2028 season and train for LA. She did do AA in TQ and also VT/UB in team finals.

Would Romania allow her to train in the US and join the team for specific events?

Or would it be similar situation to Amelie Morgan??

 

[KristyJ]

I an curious to see what happens for Romania 2025-2028. We all figured it would be an almost impossible comeback for them after missing out on 2016 and 2020. They had almost no depth and gymnasts would retire suddenly. They managed to rise like a phoenix (hence the Paris Leos) and finished a remarkable 7th as a team.

What will the future bring for the team? If they can hold onto their Paris group headed toward Los Angeles they have a very good chance at making another team final.

The factions are what worry me the most in regards to continued momentum forward. If the team was able to rally around itself and members to support each other, I could see them building something longer term, but I worry that the infighting will pull them further apart instead. I have no ideal how the Paris medal debacle will affect that.

 

[RedBirdie]

Oh, and I just remembered, Patrick Kiens is no longer to Romanian head coach! He's gone to Belgium. How is that going to impact things?

 

[MaryClare]

Denisa Golgota is training again

 

[irichluck21]

Nice to hear Golgota is back, she was uber talented.

 

[Annie]

Oh, and I just remembered, Patrick Kiens is no longer to Romanian head coach! He's gone to Belgium. How is that going to impact things?

Who will replace him? He really was a big reason on why the girls looked so good in Paris. Will they bring in another international coach?

 

[MaryClare]

Who will replace him? He really was a big reason on why the girls looked so good in Paris. Will they bring in another international coach?

I’d be surprised if they brought in another outside coach, with how things went

 

[Hatsumomo]

The factions are what worry me the most in regards to continued momentum forward. If the team was able to rally around itself and members to support each other, I could see them building something longer term, but I worry that the infighting will pull them further apart instead. I have no ideal how the Paris medal debacle will affect that.

IMHO, Romania's group dynamic had a not-insignificant role in their successes in the '90s and early '00s. Now you have one gymnast being touted as the one who is going to bring Romanian gymnastics back to glory, and her mother is brought along as a team coach but will do nothing for the team as a whole, only her daughter. Then you have the faction that supports the Voineas and bullies the other gymnasts, one to the point of nearly quitting. I can't imagine Romania is going to do much better than they did in Paris, let alone make it back to superpower status.

The USA team stopped looking like a season of The Real World and more like a cohesive unit and they've been on a gold streak since 2012 (2020/1 notwithstanding because that would've been a gold if Simone was able to compete in the TF).

 

[Bob]

The USA team stopped looking like a season of The Real World and more like a cohesive unit and they've been on a gold streak since 2012 (2020/1 notwithstanding because that would've been a gold if Simone was able to compete in the TF).

I don't think so. They were beat in quals by Russia and I think would have been beat in TF too.

 

[Hatsumomo]

This is true (I had forgotten Russia beat the USA in TQ). TFs would've been a good battle to watch, especially with that year's weird format. If Simone were at her usual level, Jordan Chiles would've been the question with her consistency. Though Russia sometimes could be a crapshoot in finals, they almost always could take advantage of their closest competitors' mistakes.

 

[MaryClare]

This is true (I had forgotten Russia beat the USA in TQ). TFs would've been a good battle to watch, especially with that year's weird format. If Simone were at her usual level, Jordan Chiles would've been the question with her consistency. Though Russia sometimes could be a crapshoot in finals, they almost always could take advantage of their closest competitors' mistakes.

Russia also managed to win with 2 falls. So the same what ifs apply as they do with the US. What if Russia hit?

 

[Hatsumomo]

I said that if Simone was able to compete normally, Jordan's consistency would have been the question mark. Looking up the scores, you keep Jordan's TFs errors in, Russia may have still won even with their two falls, just not by nearly 4 points as they did because the USA would have regained about 3 points by not putting up McCallum on UB and Simone not inadvertently doing a 1.5TY.

Though looking at the scores, I'm actually shocked to see USA was as close to Russia on UB as they were in TQ even with Jordan's sub-13. I would've thought the gap was way wider because the USA tends to be weak on UB and that tends to be one of Russia's best events. Suni Lee was doing some extremely heavy lifting there.

 

[RichardL]

McCallum was always going to do AA in TFs. Chiles was slated for VT/FX, Lee for UB/BB.

 

[Hatsumomo]

You're completely right, I got things mixed up. My earlier statement would've then required Forster to be precognizant and he was barely recognizant. Though it still stands that Lee was carrying that event on her back for the USA and Chiles' consistency was a mess. She ended up beating McCallum on UB in TF but went sub-12 on the event she was always slated to compete.

 

[Hatsumomo]

Back to Romania, I read somewhere some years ago that gymnastics doesn't have the same pull or popularity in Romania as it once did. If that's true, then that's a battle in of itself to fight.

 

[MaryClare]

Back to Romania, I read somewhere some years ago that gymnastics doesn't have the same pull or popularity in Romania as it once did. If that's true, then that's a battle in of itself to fight.

Gymnastics is seen as part of the old, poor Romania. Tennis is the most popular sport with the biggest stars.

Attitudes in Romania have become much more aligned with those in Western Europe. Romanian parents in their 30s and 40s, are not queuing up to get their 8 year olds into Deva. They don’t want that for their children.

 

[phoenix7]

As I understand it, they were never going to hire Kiens or anyone else between end of Olympics and ramping up for worlds. And probably not then given how poor the federation is. I think they'll deal with a stripped down coaching team for a year or so now, until stakes are higher.

In better news, though, the ministry committed to refurbishing their gym - at Izvorani - after the Olympics. The team there worked with Kiens and Jones. Cotitiu has said he wants to keep the changed ethos - he never wants to go back to the old Romanian way. Morosan was already an outsider despite being Romanian - her success as a coach was mostly in the UK. And she has bonded with the gymnasts.

All depends now who is elected head of the RGF, with Carmencita Constantin stepping down. But she has handled the medal drama well, from a Romanian perspective, so her chances of influencing choice of successor are good.