PARIS2024 OLYMPICS: Camelia Potec - Swimming returns after 20 years and brings medals for Romania
AGERPRES special correspondent to Paris, France, Adrian Tone reports:
Chair of the Romanian Federation of Aquatics and Modern Pentathlon (FRNPM) Camelia Potec said on Monday evening, after Romanian swimmer David Popovici won gold in the men's 200 m freestyle, that swimming returns after 20 years and brings an Olympic medal again for Romania.
"Here is a happy team, a united team, a country where we can say that the ice has now been broken, and that swimming returns after 20 years and brings medals again for Romania. From now on absolutely everything is possible," Potec said.
She added that Popovici's victory is all the more important as it comes after a not exactly happy year 2023 for him.
"I cried and I will cry again, not now, because I am strong. It's normal, 20 years have passed, I'm glad that we have an Olympic champion, I'm glad that David Popovici confirmed, that after a less happier 2023, he succeeded."
David Popovici won the gold medal in the men's 200 m freestyle event at the Paris Olympic Games, after a nail-biting race.
He was second after the first lap, he was third after 100 metres, then he advanced to the second position at 150 metres, managing to overtake British Matthew Richards on the last stretch of the race.
Popovici, 19, a two-time world champion and four-time European champion, won the first Olympic medal in the history of Romanian men's swimming clocking in at 1:44.72.
Popovici was top seed both in the heats (1:45.65) and in the semifinals (1:44.53).
He came in fourth in the men's 200m freestyle final three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics.
This is also Romania's first medal at the 2024 Olympics.
Popovici will also compete in Paris in the men's100m freestyle today.
Romania's previous Olympic swimming medal dates back to 2004, when Camelia Potec took the gold in the women's 200m freestyle in Athens, and Razvan Florea the bronze in the men's 200m backstroke event. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Marius Tone; EN -author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Cristina Zaharia)
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