Farul Constanţa is Romania’s new football
champion. The team coached by Gheorghe Hagi has claimed the title a leg before
the end of the championships’ play-off stage, with a 3-2 home win against FCSB,
and put a distance of four points between them and the runner-up. Also in the last but one leg, CFR Cluj
clinched a 2-1 win against Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe. Rapid Bucharest will be up
against Universitatea Craiova on Monday.
On Friday Universitatea Cluj secured a 2-1 away
win against Hermannstadt and FC Arges a 3-0 home win against Petrolul Ploiesti.
Chindia Targoviste versus FC FC Voluntari ended in a draw, two-all. UTA also
drew their game against FCU Craiova, one-all. On Saturday, FC Botosani trounced
FC Mioveni 5-1 and the latter demoted to the second football league. And so did
Chindia Targoviste. Two sides have advanced to the first league; they are Poli
Iasi and Otelul Galati, from eastern Romania. UTA and FC Argeş will go into the
play-offs with the sides on the fourth and fifth positions in the second
league. FC Arges will be up against Dinamo Bucharest and UTA takes on Gloria
Buzau.
Romanian athletes have obtained good results in
the first matches of the World Table Tennis Championships underway in Durban, South
Africa. In the women’s singles, Andreea Dragoman has outperformed Szu-Yu Chen
of Taiwan and Adina Diaconu defeated Goi Rui Xuan, of Singapore. In the men’s
contest Eduard Ionescu lost to Simon Gauzy of France. Ovidiu Ionescu and
Spanish Alvaro Robles have qualified for the round of 32 of the doubles contest
without playing after the pair made up of Ramon Maxwell and Tyrese Knight, of Barbados
didn’t show up. In the women’s doubles contest, Romanians Andreea Dragoman and Elizabeta
Samara have qualified for the round of 32 after a win against the South African
pair made up of Musfiquh Kalam and Lailaa Edwards.
The Romanian- Spanish pair Adina Diaconu / Maria
Xiao has also qualified after a win against Charlotte Lutz and Audrey Zarif of
France. In the mixed-doubles, Ovidiu Ionescu and Bernadette Szőcs have qualified
for the same round of 32 after a win against Ibrahim Gunduz and Sibel Altinkaya
of Turkey.
Unfortunately, Eduard Ionescu and Adina Diaconu
lost to Simon Gauzy and Prithika Pavade of France. The latest medal obtained by
a Romanian in the aforementioned competition was when Ovidiu Ionescu, world vice
champion in the men’s doubles teamed up with Spanish Alvaro Robles in Budapest
in 2019.
(bill)