Radio România Internațional

Tag: world record

  • Romanian David Popovici, the fastest swimmer in history

    Romanian David Popovici, the fastest swimmer in history

    On July 9, 1922, in Alameda, California, Johnny Weissmuller swam one hundred meters in less than a minute, setting a new world record. Born near Timişoara, in Freidorf, he was to become famous both thanks to his Olympic victories and especially to the main role in the movie Tarzan, the Ape Man. After 100 years, another athlete born in Romania broke the world record in the 100-meter freestyle event, practically becoming, the fastest swimmer in history, given the official results approved so far.



    At the European Championships in Rome, on Saturday, David Popovici finished the 100- meter race in 46 seconds and 86 hundredths. He thus broke a 13-year-old record, held by the Brazilian Cesar Cielo Filho, who, also in Rome, but at the World Championships, in 2009, recorded 46 seconds and 91 hundredths, at a time when specially designed suits to increase speed were still allowed. As expected, the international press wrote appreciatively about Davids record. “The 17-year-old phenomenon erased Cesar Cielo’s record in the European final, Marca wrote and Gazzetta dello Sport called David Baby Fenomeno.



    On Monday, the Romanian swimmer was very close to repeating his performance in the European 200-meter final. David Popovici, the current world champion in the 200m event, won the final in Rome as well, as a great champion, with a time of one minute, 47 seconds and 97 hundredths, a new world and European record in the juniors competition, as well as in the Rome competition. He was less than one second, more precisely 97 hundredths, away from the record broken by the German Paul Biedermann, also from Rome in 2009. At the same time, the recorded time was only one hundredth of a second longer than the one with which Michael Phelps, David’s idol, won the Olympic title in Beijing in 2008.



    After Davids victory in the 200 meters and the award ceremony, Radio Romanias reporter asked David how he felt being so close to the American’s performance: “I felt ultra-satisfied, of course, but not at all disappointed that I didn’t manage to obtain his time. But it’s okay; I have all the time in the world. Phelps, when he obtained this time, one hundredth of a second better than me, he also broke the world record. This final tired me more, being the second event in the schedule. It’s not like it was absolutely the hardest race of my life. It was definitely the best race in the 200-m event. But this is how it is in sports. If everyone was able to cope with such a level of effort, then there would be many more athletes at this level.



    In Rome, David Popovici will also compete in the 400-meter freestyle event. The heats of the race are scheduled for Wednesday, August 17. (LS)

  • September 30, 2018

    September 30, 2018

    INDONESIA – The provisional death toll of the earthquake and ensuing tsunami which rocked the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Friday stands at over 830 dead, the National Disaster Management Agency has today announced. Many people are caught in the rubble, after several buildings collapsed following Fridays earthquake which measured 7.5 degrees and caused tsunami waves of up to 6m in height. Rescue teams in the town of Palu, on the western coast of Sulawesi, are making huge efforts to take people out from under the rubble. Most victims have been identified in Palu. The Romanian Foreign Ministry has sent messages of condolence to the victims families. The ministry expresses compassion and solidarity with the Indonesian people and authorities and expresses deep regret over the high number of victims, as well as for the high volume of material damage caused by that natural disaster, the Romanian Foreign Ministry writes in a communiqué.



    SOVEREIGN FUND – The Romanian Finance Ministry has launched a public debate on the setting up of the Sovereign Development and Investment Fund. The document establishes the legal form, the registered capital, the strategy and management of this fund which, in the governments opinion, is needed to mobilise the available financial resources and channel them towards profitable projects. According to the relevant ministry, this Sovereign Fund is also aimed at developing and financing profitable and sustainable investment projects, from own funds and from attracted funds. The fund will include 33 state owned companies and the registered capital will stand at some 2 billion Euros.



    GUAM – The former Soviet states which are making up the GUAM group, namely Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and the Republic of Moldova, will join efforts and will better coordinate their positions to defend their territorial integrity, representatives of the GUAM member states have announced in Chisinau, during a session of the GUAM Parliamentary Assembly. The delegates have also criticised Russias involvement in fuelling territorial conflicts in the region. GUAM was set up in 2006, with the declared aim of developing cooperation between the member states, by boosting stability and common security in the European space. The Republic of Moldova, a country with a predominantly Romanian speaking population, is currently holding the presidency of this organisation.



    TRANSPORTS – Road passenger traffic in Romania increased by some 14% in the first half of the year, as against the similar period of 2017, and air traffic by 7.5%, data released by the National Statistics Institute show. The n umber of passengers who travelled by plane in the first six months of the year stood at some 10 million, 86.6% of whom were registered on international flights. In exchange, railway passenger traffic decreased by 2.7% in terms of the number of passengers. A 23.4% drop was also reported on Romanias internal waterways. No passenger sea traffic was reported in the aforementioned time span.



    TENNIS– Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, no.1 WTA, exits the Beijing tennis tournament in the first round, with back pain. She abandoned the match she played against Ons Jabeur, no.113 WTA, after the Tunisian player won the first set 6-1. Another Romanian, Sorana Cirstea no.57 WTA, is facing Dutch Kiki Bertens no.11 WTA, whom she has defeated in all matches they have played so far. Although she was defeated by Slovenian Polona Hercog, Cîrstea made it to the main tables, after Australian Ashleigh Barty withdrew from the competition, after Fridays defeat. In the doubles, Romanian women players Mihaela Buzărnescu and Monica Niculescu have qualified for the second round, after defeating the pair Hao-Ching Chan (Taiwan)/Zhaoxuan Yang (China). Buzărnescu and Niculescu will face in the eighth finals the pair made up of Abigail Spears (the US)/Alicja Rosolska (Poland).



    WORLD RECORD – Thousands of people-4807- particularly pupils and high-school students from all across Romania on Saturday set a new world record in the central Romanian town of Alba Iulia, by creating the largest human image of a country. Inside the map, they highlighted the number 100, by wearing white cloaks, as a way to celebrate 100 years since the setting up of the Romanian national unitary state. The old record belonged to Myanmar, where 3,466 people gathered in February 2018 to recreate the map of their country.