Leon Rotman is one of Romania’s greatest athletes. On July 22nd,
Rotman turned 85. He was the first
double Olympic champion in the history of Romanian sports.
First of all, thank you for calling. I am fine, as fine as an
85-year old man can be. With a slight backache or an injured leg, ’cause last
year I had a sprained ankle. You know,
there’s a saying going something like: if nothing hurts, that means you are
dead. I feel alive and kicking, for the time being.
Leon Rotman was born in Bucharest on July 22, 1934. When he was 15 he was an apprentice with the
Timpuri Noi plants. At that time he started training with the Flacara wrestling
club, being one of the 67-kilogram hopefuls. In 1952, while he was on the shore
of Floreasca lake, Rotman discovered nautical sports. Soon afterwards he became
a member of the kayak-canoe section of Dinamo Club in Bucharest. He was very
quick to persuade his coaches his place was in the men’s canoeing singles boat.
Rotman rapidly scooped a series of wins at national level, so he was shortlisted
for the delegation representing Romania at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. Three
of the four medals in the canoe race went to Romanian rowers who had no problem
overpowering their Russian and Hungarian challengers, the dominating crews at
that time.
Leon Rotman:
Nobody expected that, I didn’t expect that
either. I was a last-resort option for the race, in the hopes that I will be
the runner-up rower in the 10,000m race and that I might also earn a place, no
matter what, in the 1,000m race. I started off in my usual position in recent years,
I was the first to take off and was also the first to end the race. I had the
lead all throughout the race. The challengers I had were the strongest at that
time, there was Janos Parti, the Hungarian who two years earlier won the world
title in Macon, and then there was the Soviet Genadyi Bukharin. In the long run
I left them fight each other, I managed to distance myself and I was brave
enough to look back as I was entering the final hundred-meter lap, and saw they
were behind me quite all right. I finished the race about 70-80 meters ahead of
them, my boat was almost hitting the shore, as that’s how the lake was like, it
was a natural lake. Everybody welcomed me with cheers and applauses. At night I
was celebrated in the Olympic village, the following day I had the thousand-meter
race. First off, I was surpassed by the Czech Peter Hadril, for about three or
four hundred meters. He was the only opponent who managed to overtake me right
from the start. I wasn’t scared, since judging by his pace I realized it won’t
last more than four hundred meters, and I was right. Then I took the lead. After
that I went head-to-head with Istvan Hernek, the world-vice champion in Macon,
France, who was also a Hungarian, the fight was between us two, and I overtook
him by half a boat length, coming in first this time around .
The third gold medal scooped by the Romanian rowers in
Melbourne was won by Alexe Dumitru and Simion Ismailciuc, in the 1,000m double
scull race. Four years later, in Rome, Romanian rowers won only one medal. The
performer was yet again Leon Rotman, who walked home with a bronze medal he won
in the 1,000m men’s singles race.