The former double Olympic medalist Maricica Puica has
recently been awarded the Golden Girdle, the highest award given by Romania’s
Olympic and Sports Committee in recognition of a life dedicated to Sports and
Olympic ideals. Besides her career in sports, Maricica Puica has constantly
been involved in the process of supporting children and junior athletes on
their way to performance.
Her contribution along the years included prizes and
equipment for the promising young athletes. In 1997 she was nominated National Ambassador
for Sports, Tolerance and Fair Play with the Council of Europe. In 2000 she was
awarded the National Order of Faithful Service in rank of knight and in 2004
she got the Order of Sports Merit First Class.
Maricica Puică was born in Iasi on June 29th 1950
and trained at the Olympia Sports Club in Bucharest. Experts believe that this
remarkable athlete would have run during training and contests a total over 90
thousand kilometers, which means double the Earth’s circumference. In a sports
career spanning over 20 years she mustered 25 gold medals in top competitions,
21 silver and one bronze.
At the age of 17 she obtained her first notable performance
in Istanbul when she became a Balkan champion in a cross country race. She
became world champion in 1978 with a Romanian team which also included Natalia
Andrei, Georgeta Gazibara, Antoaneta Iacob and Fiţa Lovin.
She managed to win the world title in 1982 and 1984 also as
a cross-country racer. She set 6 world records on various distances, 2 European
and 15 Balkan.
In 1984, after she had become the world’s cross country
champion, she walked away from the Los Angeles Olympics with 2 medals, one gold
in the 3-thousand-meter race and bronze in the 15-hundred-meter dash.
At the Los Angeles Olympics, Puica set two records in the
3-thousand-meter race. Furthermore, she was the only athlete to have obtained a
world and an Olympic title in the same year. Her last big performance was the
gold medal she got at the European Championship in The Hague in 1989 at the age
of 39.
(bill)