AGERPRES special correspondent Adrian Tone reports: The President of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee, Mihai Covaliu, on Monday evening said that David Popovici brought a lot of joy and honour to all Romanians by winning the gold medal in 200 m freestyle in the Olympic Games in Paris, on the National Anthem Day.

"We broke the ice and this medal comes in a special day for us all, too, the National Anthem Day. David brought us this joy and it was a great honour for us to see him win the gold medal for Romania and be able to listen the national anthem here, in La Defense arena, at the 2024 edition of the Olympic Games, in Paris," he said.

"I could see how David was already very focused, very determined, when he left Bucharest for Paris. He came here knowing exactly what he had to do. We also took that decision to move outside the Olympic Village, at the request of the team and the federation, so that he was able to focus on the gold medal, and here he is, winning it. There were a lot of things that people said and that shouldn't have been said, but David showed us all again, tonight, that he knows what he is doing, that he is an experienced athlete, with a valuable team behind him. Together with the federation we are doing everything in our power to support athletes like David Popovici so that they can enjoy the best conditions and be able to make performance. His rivals realized too late that transportation was not that good, distances were too long and restrictions too many and they also moved from the Olympic Village, but later than us," said Covaliu.

Romanian swimmer David Popovici won the gold medal in the 200 m freestyle swimming event at the Olympic Games in Paris, after a very tight and dramatic race. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Marius Tone, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia)