A Look Back in Time (IV)

The Romanian Scandals Debacle of 2001-2004

After the 2001 World Championships in Ghent, Romanian gymnastics hit some Hard Times, which I affectionately refer to as the Romanian Scandals Debacle. All these crappy happenings just seemed to hit the Romanian program right and left, which was still being shepherded (more like ‘domineered’) by Belu and Bitang. Quite juicy. Of course, more than half of it was the Romanian program’s own fault.

Among the things that happened and were revealed during this somewhat dark period of modern Romanian gymnastics history (some of which I have made reference to before):

• 2000 Olympian Loredana Boboc retired, after realizing that she would never be able to get back to the shape that the program demanded of her. According to Matt Esler’s open letter to the International Olympic Committee, Loredana and her teammates, having been denied sweets, etc., for a very very long time because of the coaches’ fear that they would gain weight, finally snapped and sneaked a few croissants in Ghent. In Loredana’s words, “When we saw the steaming croissants that smelled so good, what could we do?” If I remember correctly, Loredana also later accused her coaches (including Belu) of “skimming off the top” from her prize money received for her team gold medals from the World Championships (1999 Tianjin and/or 2001 Ghent) and the Sydney Olympics…they were basically “stealing” from her.
• With teammates Carmen Ionescu, Andreea Ulmeanu, and Monica Sabou retiring along with Loredana, the Romanian senior team was severely diminished, leaving Belu and Bitang scrabbling for competitors…especially after the Romanian Gymnastics Federation itself ordered many of the girls in Deva to go home, accusing them of being “fat” and “lazy”. Among the victims of this purge was the future 2004 Olympian Silvia Stroescu. Only Andreea Răducan, who was the ‘teacher’s pet’, was allowed to stay.
• Răducan herself soon became exasperated and burnt out with the RGF’s antics. She retired in 2002, overweight and disillusioned. (Of course, Andreea’s metabolism calmed down after that and now she is crazy beautiful.)
• Corina Ungureanu, even before she, Claudia Presacan, and Milo took their clothes off in Japan, was already making waves in 2002. She had posed for Playboy and constantly talked smack about the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, saying that they got all the money while non-World Champion/Olympian gymnasts and club coaches only got a pittance, or nothing at all.
• Milo herself also openly accused the RGF of cheating the gymnasts out of their prize money (before she went to Japan). And it wasn’t the first time she stood up for this; in 1994, Milo led a gymnast’s strike in Deva, refusing to train until the RGF gave her the promised allowance for winning medals.
• The age falsification scandal became hot news in 2002, with Romanian legend Daniela Silivaş admitting that her age had been falsified. Other Romanian gymnasts who also said that their ages were tweaked were Aurelia Dobre and Alexandra Marinescu. Gina Gogean would not admit that her age was falsified, but the evidence spoke for itself (Oh Gina, your Happy Place must be a great place to be…).
• And although she’s not Romanian, Verona van de Leur (NED) told a magazine in 2002 that she saw the ‘mark of a hand’ on Simona Amânar’s face (Amânar had retired in 2000 after the Olympics). Seems that even quiet, dear old Simi wasn’t immune to the abuse.
• Alexandra Marinescu’s scandalous book came out. She didn’t get a brass farthing for it.
• Sabina Cojocar, the promising young gymnast who is now a singer, first burst onto the scene in 2001. However, by 2003 she was forced to retire because of liver problems caused by the cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor and the related drug Lipobay. She was prescribed this medicine by the Romanian doctor, who said that she had high cholesterol. The problem was that Zocor IS A MEDICINE FOR ADULTS and Sabina, although she was a teenager, had the body size of a child. It’s entirely possible that the doctor had purposefully misdiagnosed Sabina for the purpose of having her take the medicine in order to prevent weight gain. Because you know that’s all that really matters in gymnastics, your weight! [/sarcasm] In any case, the drug caused Sabina a lot of physical pain; when she complained of it, the Deva coaches saw that as merely spoiled griping, and kicked Sabina to the curb. Sabina went to the press; in response, Gina Gogean belittled her, calling her “mediocre”. Many fans vilified Gina for doing this.
• 2004 Olympian Oana Ban also had to go through much of the same crap as Sabina did, only she survived.
• Oana Petrovschi had won a silver medal behind Courtney Kupets at the 2002 Worlds in Debrecen, on the uneven bars. In 2003 she retired due to back problems, like Alexandra Marinescu. But the real Petrovschi drama came in 2004, just before the Olympics; she sued Belu and Bitang for…something. The whole lawsuit business was a real mess; Petrovschi claimed that not only did Belu and Bitang make her train when she was injured and demand a percentage of her prize monies, but Bitang also violated her privacy (sent her to a gynecologist!) when they suspected that she was sleeping with her man-friend while still on the national team, etc. The latter was later “proved” to be an exaggeration on Petrovschi’s part, though obviously no one knows for sure. Especially since the Olympics were fast approaching, Petrovschi was reviled by gymnastics fans who felt that she was sabotaging the Romanians’ morale. And then, a Romanian insurance company tried to buy Petrovschi off (pay for her back surgeries) if she would only drop the lawsuit (said company was sponsoring the Romanian team at the time), and Belu returned 300 €—assumedly that was the money he had ‘demanded’ from her in the first place). Petrovschi eventually accepted, but later on, the company demanded that she return a car that they had given to her as (assumedly) part of the settlement. Their excuse was that the company was under new management. I don’t know what became of that; some supporters felt that Petrovschi should pick up the lawsuit again because they breached the settlement, but I don’t think anything happened. Belu and Bitang were retired by then anyway.

Thankfully for Romanian gymnastics, the promising juniors (and future Olympians) Monica Roşu and Alexandra Eremia came to join Ban and Stroescu at Deva. Cătălina Ponor and Daniela Şofronie joined them in the elite scene later. Along with Floarea Leonida and Andreea Munteanu, these girls were all that Romania had going into Athens.

And then THEY got into their own Romanian Scandal…but it wasn’t much compared to what happened in 2001-2003. But that’s for another time…heh heh heh.