Radio România Internațional

Tag: Mihaela Cambei

  • Athlete of the Week

    Athlete of the Week

    The Olympic Games have come to an end in Paris with Romania ranking 23rd in the medal standings. Our athletes walked away from Paris with nine medals, three gold, four silver and two bronze. Most of these medals, seven, were obtained in the first week of contests. In the second week, athletes from Romania reaped two medals. Gymnast Ana Barbosu won bronze in the floor event and weightlifter Mihaela Cambei stepped onto the podium’s second step after coming second in the 49-kilogram category. In order to designate the athlete of the week, Radio Romania International had to choose between the two athletes. We eventually chose Cambei for the sensational way in which she competed.

    Mihaela’s performance has been described by experts as perfect. In the snatch event she lifted 89, 91 and 93 kilograms, while in the jerk event she first lifted 106, then 110 and eventually 112 kilograms. According to Agerpres news agency, the athlete got injured in the second attempt of the jerk event. She eventually totaled 205 kilograms, but lost to Zhihui Hou of China who managed to lift 117 kilograms, set a record in the jerk event of the aforementioned category, and eventually scored a total of 206 kilograms. Surodchana Khambao of Thailand came third with a total of 200 kilograms.

    Mihaela Valentina Cambei was born in Bacau county, eastern Romania on November 18, 2002. At the age of only 16 she became bronze medalist in the 48-kilogram category in the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

    She compelled international recognition in competitions when she walked away with silver from the jerk event of the World Championships held in Bogota in 2022. She dominated the European Championships in 2023 and 2024 by repeatedly breaking the continental record in the jerk event. At the European Championships held in Sofia this spring, Cambei was designated the Best European Weightlifter of the year 2023.

    (bill)

  • Another edition of the Olympic Games end in Paris

    Another edition of the Olympic Games end in Paris

    A small torch carried on Sunday by the phenomenal French swimmer Leon Marchand – the only athlete to have won four gold medals at the Olympics in Paris – marked the end of the 33rd edition of the Olympic Games.

    Romania ended this edition of the prestigious competition with 9 medals, of which, three gold, four silver and two bronze. Romania’s gold medalists were swimmer David Popovici, in the 200 meters freestyle race, Andrei Cornea and Marian Enache in the men’s double race and the Romania’s women eight made up of Maria Magdalena Rusu, Roxana Anghel, Ancuta Bodnar, Maria Lehaci, Adriana Adam, Amalia Beres, Ioana Vrinceanu, Simona Radis and Victoria Stefania Petreanu. Ancuta Bodnar and Simona Radis walked away with silver from the women’s double scull event and so did Ioana Vrinceanu and Roxana Anghel in the women’s pair. Gianina van Groningen and Ionela Cozmiuc also became silver medalists in the light-weight women’s double scull and so did weightlifter Mihaela Cambei in the 49 kilogram category.

    David Popovici with bronze in the 100 meter freestyle race and gymnast Ana Barbosu stepped onto the podium’s third step.

    Romania had a better presence in Paris than in Tokyo 2021 and Rio 2016, where its athletes got only four medals. And they fared better than in London Olympics, from where they walked away with only 7 medals.

    However, the number of medals won in Paris is significantly lower when compared to Sidney 2000, when our athletes reaped no less than 26 medals.

    Romania went 23rd out of the 206 participants in the medal ranking in Paris. The United States topped the table with 40 gold, 44 silver and 42 bronze medals, followed by China with 40 gold, 27 silver and 24 bronze. Japan went third with 20 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze.

    The host country, France, ranked fifth with 16 gold medals, 26 silver and 22 bronze.

    The closing ceremony was attended by 80 thousand people who came to celebrate sports and their winners. Bearing the medals they won, athletes were allowed to enter the stadium without being imposed any alphabetical order as two weeks ago in the opening ceremony.

    An original grandiose show of light and colour with artists wearing SF costumes was staged during the closing ceremony, which also included fireworks.

    Roughly 300 dancers, actors and musicians put up a show in which extraterrestrials coming from outer space were restoring the Olympic Games and rebuilding the Olympic Circles.

    During the aforementioned ceremony, the Olympic Flag was handed over to the next host country, the USA, and a 15-minute Hollywood performance came to complete the show.

    Upon a spectacular jump over the stadium, the US film star Tom Cruise has been assigned another ‘mission impossible’, namely to carry the Olympic flag to Los Angeles.

     

    (bill)

  • April 20, 2024 UPDATE

    April 20, 2024 UPDATE

    PLANES Three F-16 jet fighters Romania bought from Norway landed at the Air Base 71 in Campia Turzii, central Romania on Friday. This has been the second batch of these multi-role fighters Romania bought from Norway; the first batch arrived in November, last year. According to the National Defence Ministry, the 32 F-16s Romania is going to receive by the end of next year are meant to consolidate the country’s air defence adjusted to the regional security challenges. They are going to play a major role in keeping an allied posture of defence and deterrence on the eastern flank and will ensure transition towards the fifth generation, the F-35 planes Romania is going to get, as minister Angel Tilvar says. The Romanian air forces now boast 20 F-16 jet fighters.

     

    RATING In the past year agencies have reconfirmed Romania’s sovereign rating and stable prospect, but there is room for improvement, such as the lower-cost access to funding on international capital markets and for attracting foreign investment – the country’s Finance Minister Marcel Bolos says in a Facebook post. During a working visit he paid to Washington, the Romanian official held talks with representatives of famous rating agencies, such as Standard&Poor’s and Moody’s on Romania’s economic particularities and the strategies aimed at ensuring macro-economic stability. Bolos also attended the spring proceedings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. According to Bolos, in order to raise economic competitiveness and create an appropriate environment for durable investment, Bucharest is focusing on fiscal consolidation, on raising investment in infrastructure and education, on boosting private investment and the promotion of an effective and transparent economic governance.

     

    HOLIDAY The Romanian Black Sea resorts are stepping up preparations for the upcoming mini-holiday on May 1st and the Orthodox Easter, to be celebrated on May 5th and which actually opens the summer holiday season in Romania. Owners of hotels, restaurants and guest houses in the region are expecting a large number of tourists as many rooms have already been booked. According to Corina Martin, secretary general of the Federation of Employers’ Associations, over 80 thousand people are expected to spend the mini-holiday in the aforementioned seaside resorts. The largest number of tourists is expected in the resort of Mamaia. Between May 1st and 7th the resort will be hosting the International Electronic Music Festival, Sunwaves, which is expected to bring together roughly 6 thousand tourists from abroad, a gastronomic festival and outdoor concerts given by Romania’s top artists.

     

    VISIT Over April 22 and 24, the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis will be paying a formal visit to the Republic of Korea, upon the invitation of his counterpart Yoon Suk Yeol. The Republic of Korea is the first country in the Asia-Pacific area with which Romania raised its relations at the level of strategic partnership in 2008. On the occasion of Iohannis’ upcoming visit to Seoul, this partnership will be consolidated through a document, which sets the cooperation directions for the next 10 years. Relevant documents are expected to be signed in the field of defence, nuclear energy, investment and foreign trade, cooperation in emergency situations and disaster management, cooperation in the field of culture, mass-media, youth and sports. In the Republic of Korea, the Romanian president will be meeting representatives of the Romanian community and business environment and will be visiting an exhibition of Romanian traditional art.

     

    SPORTS According to the Facebook page of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee, Romanian athlete Bianca Ghelber managed to clear the Olympic qualification threshold in the hammer throw event in Nairobi, Kenya. Ghelber’s third throw measured 74.06 m, 6 centimeters over the threshold imposed by the World Athletics. She ended the contest on the second position after Janee Kassanavoid of the USA, which threw 75.99 meters. For Bianca Ghelber, that would be the fourth participation in the Olympic Games, after Beijing 2008, London 2012, and Tokyo 2020. Team Romania now boasts 79 qualified athletes in ten sporting contests, athletics, swimming, boxing, kayak-canoe, rowing, gymnastics, water polo, table tennis, wrestling. Weightlifters Mihaela Cambei and Loredana Toma have also qualified, but are still to be officially recognized.

     

    ROAD A 2.2 kilometer section of modernized motorway was opened in Galati, a Romanian port on the Danube, on Saturday. The new section will ease the access to Europe of transporters from Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. The section is part of a complex 140 million euro project, which also includes a goods terminal in the port of Galati, the only Romanian one along the Rhine-Danube corridor benefitting from a double-gauge rail infrastructure. The other investment stages are scheduled to unfold by the end of next year.

    (bill)

     

  • Radio Romania International Sports Club

    Radio Romania International Sports Club

    At least two Romanian women weightlifters have secured their participation in the Olympic Games in Paris this coming summer. According to the Romanian Weightlifting Federation, Mihaela Cambei and Loredana Toma have already booked their place for the Olympics, considering the positions they have, according to the rankings of the categories they compete in. As of late, both Toma and Cambei have participated in the pre-Olympic tournament in Thailand’s Phuket. The event is mandatory for the Olympic qualifiers.

     

    Mihaela Cambei walked away with two silver medals and a bronze medal in the 55-kilogram category. A many-time European champion, Mihaela won the silver medal with a combined deadlift of 201 kilograms. Cambei was second only to North-Korea’s Hyon Gyong Kang, who succeeded a combined deadlift of 234 kg. In the snatch style, Mihaela Cambei came in second, with 91 kilograms. In the clean-and-jerk style, Mihaela Cambei came in third, with 110 kilograms.

     

    In the 71-kilogram category, Loredana Toma was unassumingly 12th-placed, with a combined deadlift of 235 kilograms. Loredana had medical problems in Thailand so she was not at her best during the competition. However, Loredana Toma has maintained her position among the 71-kilogram category’s top weightlifters, given her combined deadlift result of 256 kilograms in Bogota, Colombia, in 2022. We recall that back then Loredana walked home with two gold medals, setting a new world record in the snatch style.

     

    For the first time ever in their career, Loredana Toma and Mihaela Cambei will take part in an Olympic competition, the one in Paris. We recall that in 2021 Loredana Toma should have competed in the Tokyo Olympics. However, ahead of the Tokyo-hosted Olympic Games, the International Weightlifting Federation ruled a one-year ban for the Romanian Weightlifting Federation because of violation of the anti-doping rule on a number of occasions.

     

    We recall that back then Loredana Toma was the favourite to winning a gold medal in the 69-kilogram category. 29-year-old Loredana Toma is an experienced weightlifter, while Mihaela Cambei is a representative of the younger generation. She will be 22 in November 2024. Her record includes two European titles already. We recall Cambei walked away with gold in Yerevan, in 2023, and in Sofia, in 2024, in the snatch and clean-and-jerk style, as well as combined