02. Januar 2006  
Bulgaria / Romania  
Artistic Gymnastics

Marian Dragulescu - elected as Balkan Top Athlete No.1

Dragulescu, Champion No.1 on Balkan

WORLD sport gymnastics champion Marian Dragulescu of Romania was named top Balkan athlete for 2005 in the 33rd annual poll by Bulgarian news agency BTA. The poll covered six news agencies from Balkan countries: the Anadolu Agency (Turkey), Romania’s Rompres, TANJUG (Serbia and Montenegro), Greece’s ANA, ATA of Albania, and BTA. This was the sixth time in the history of the poll that the winner was a sports gymnast. A total of 27 athletes were nominated, representing 15 sports diciplines.
Attending the ceremony were chairperson of the Bulgarian State Agency of Youth and Sports, representatives of diplomatic missions of the Balkan countries to Bulgaria, including Romanian ambassador Mihail Rosianu, Bulgarian and foreign journalists.
2005 - the most troubled Year of Romanian Gymnastics
2005 was clearly one of the most troubled in the history of Romanian gymnastics.
The Romanian team, which used to be seen as one of the greatest powers of women's gymnastics, fell from four Olympic gold medals in 2004 to only one bronze medal at the World's in 2005.
At the end of 2005 there is no Olympic women's team and the former members of the Olympic team - which was reduced by the end of the year to only two gymnasts - are now training at their clubs in the country with different coaches.

At the beginning of the year,
Octavian Belu and his assistant, Mariana Bitang, resigned from their positions and blamed the media for their decision. At the time, Belu and Bitang were involved in a lawsuit, together with the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, filed by a former gymnast Oana Petrovschi who accused them of maltreatment during training sessions and asked for damages of around 40,000 euros which she said she would use to treat injuries she acquired for having been forced to train.

Belu and Petrovshi

During the trial, Belu admitted that he had been paid a certain sum of money by Petrovschi as a reward for helping her performance in competitions where coaches were not officially rewarded by organizers. He argued this is a common practice in sports and his statements were supported by several Romanian sports figures.
A huge scandal broke out at the time and the coaches blamed the media for accusing them of having taken bribes.
Although the subject of a preliminary investigation by prosecutors, Belu was cleared as it was decided he could not be charged with bribe taking.
The conflict eventually was closed amicably, as the sponsor of the federation offered to pay Petrovschi her medical care. The two coaches returned to the team and were offered new contracts by the federation. Afterwards, the gymnasts of the Olympic team began to face other problems and several of them were excluded from the team for being overweight.

Ponor at the European Championships in Debrecen

Triple Olympic champion in Athens,
Catalina Ponor, remained with the team. This fall however, another scandal emerged as the coaches accused the gymnast of leaving the training base without their permission and spending the night in a club. She was accompanied by two other gymnasts of the team, Floarea Leonida and Daniela Sofronie. As a result, the federation decided to dissolve the Olympic team and the three gymnasts were sent to train with their clubs. The two coaches gave up the contracts with the federation.

The world championships 2005 in Melbourne brought only one medal for the Romanian team, and that was won by Catalina Ponor - a bronze in her favorite event, the beam.
The championships in Melbourne also meant a rearrangement in world gymnastics, as the U.S. girls swept a good part of the medals. In the men's competition however, the Romanian team did with Marian Dragulescu winning a gold medal and Ioan Suciu winning a silver medal.
Source: Bucharest Daily News