Hope you all are having a day full of romance. If not, it’s okay, because I’m not either.
The person whom I have chosen to recieve difficulty plus execution’s very first St. Valentine Greetings is the two-time three-time Olympic gold medalist (if you consider Andreea Răducan’s disqualification) Simona Amânar.
Simona Amânar montage:
Simona may have retired a while ago, but she is still very much relevant in today’s gymnastics. The Amânar, the 2.5-twist Yurchenko vault, is now one of the keystones that could determine our next Olympic champion in the all-around competition and the vault. The ability to do that vault is what makes gymnasts like Shawn Johnson, Jade Barbosa, and Cheng Fei such big contenders; and it could be the deciding factor in selecting someone for an Olympic team lineup (Sam Peszek, anyone?)
But enough of that. This is about love-love.
I want to wish a very happy Valentine’s Day to Simona and her husband, Cosmin Tabara, who personify the most fairytale-ish love story ever to come out of Romanian gymnastics.
If there were such a thing as a cute Romanian couple, they’re it. Whenever they were interviewed together they’d be teasing and pinching each other (yes, some people think that’s romantic).
Simona and Cosmin met at Lavinia Miloşovici’s wedding, where they were paired up for the ceremony. Since Cosmin’s father is Milo’s godfather, Cosmin was invited too. They kept in touch, even though Simona was still training for the 2000 Sydney Olympics at that point, and then Cosmin gathered up his nerve and went to Deva himself to ask her out in July 2000. They got married in March 2002.
Simona reveals how Cosmin proposed:
We were watching TV one night, and the movie was about a wedding. At one point, Cosmin looked at me and asked me if I wanted to be his wife. I had been waiting for that question for a while, so I said yes.
If one could die of cute, I would be dead ten times over. Gosh, Simona, look what you’ve done, I’m melting.
Said Simona on the day of her marriage:
This is a very important moment for us because we’re living out a beautiful love story.
Octavian Belu himself couldn’t believe that Simona would get a guy so fast:
When I’ll see Simi with a boy, I’ll let the gymnasts beat me.
And they did, with whipped cream.
[EDIT: I'll post my source of translated Romanian articles (where I got all these quotes) later. It's a real treat, let me tell you.]
Simona gave birth to a son shortly after her marriage, and Cosmin cried (he wasn’t at her side, but he did watch from the balcony where medical students usually watch operations. It may also interest you to know that Simona’s Atlanta teammate Gina Gogean brought flowers to her directly afterward, and Sydney teammate Maria Olaru blabbed the good news to everyone.) As for the kid, his name varies depending on what source you are consulting.
And that’s Simona’s beautiful love story, and I hope your heart was warmed by it if you didn’t find it too sappy. You see now why she deserves my first Valentine’s greeting?
So. Happy Valentine’s Day, Simona! I hope Cosmin does something super extra special for you today, even if Romanians don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.
