Olympic champion David Popovici of Romania recently spoke to the media about his home nation’s lack of competitive conditions and premier training facilities.
Despite his success, collecting 200m free gold and 100m free bronze at last summer’s Olympic Games among his impressive achievements, Popovici described his relatively mediocre training conditions at the Lia Manoliu pool in the capital city of Bucharest as a plea for Romania to invest more in its athletes on multiple levels.
The freestyle ace stated recently on a podcast, “If I were to bring my opponents or friends from other countries to visit or train with me at ‘Lia Manoliu,’ they would say that I’m making fun of them. They would say, ‘it’s a joke, show us where you actually train.’
“I am convinced that they wouldn’t believe me.” (MCN Podcast)
“For 3-4 months a year, when it’s cold, an improvised dome is placed over the pool, and everyone coughs their lungs out because there is too much chlorine and there isn’t a very good ventilation system, considering that I don’t have a proper gym where I can train.
“You can’t get such a gym, no wonder it becomes a miracle to achieve sports performance in Romania. I am lucky that I can also train at Dinamo, at my club. Other swimmer friends of mine go to Bulgaria. It’s not normal, and I want to talk about this a lot,” said Popovici, during the MCN podcast hosted by Cosmin Nedelcu.
He continued, “That’s why I and very few athletes are in this position of champions in sports. We don’t have a real strategy for sports, we don’t have such a great interest from politicians in sports.”
Popovici also described the path that led him to coach Adrian Radulescu and his other resources.
“Just because my father searched a lot, I managed to gather a very good team, with a nutritionist from the United States, a video analyst from Belgium, and physical trainers from Romania.
“We somehow came together, but athletes should have them from a young age and be provided by the state, because you end up representing the state.”
As a nation, Romania collected nine medals in Paris, spanning the sports of swimming, rowing, weightlifting and gymnastics. That was a significant improvement from the 2020 Games in Tokyo where Romania brought home 4 medals in total from rowing and fencing.
At one time, Popovici had intended to study psychology at the University of Bucharest. Last year he decided to change course and put those plans on hold, saying “I wanted to try with college in the year of the Olympics to do both, but I saw that I couldn’t focus on training with college as much as I would have liked.”
Curiously, he bought a second-hand Porsche with his own money, only to be criticised by a Romanian economist who accused him of wasting his money 🤣 and thought he should invest it in the stock market. There are always self-righteous people who like to tell others what to do in life 🤣
What does this have to do with anything?
But you should buy into the market right now! Please ignore the ridiculously P:E ratios and the classic tulip mania pattern unfolding magic orange man!
Chlorine daddy can’t handle a little Chlorine in his lungs.
Popovici to UVA! Time to join the huge incoming recruiting class!
You should see the pool Claudia and Silvia Poll trained in at Cariari in Costa Rica. It’s outdoors, unheated, and the pool temperature spends most of the year around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Even though they’ve won all of Costa Rica’s Olympic medals (and their only gold), Costa Rica still does not have a state-of-the-art natatorium almost 30 years later.
I call BS. There is no way the pool is anywhere near that cold. The average temp in San Jose is 75-80 year round. It is idyllic weather. And the pool is at the Cariari Country Club in a very nice area. Doesn’t sound anything like what Popovici is dealing with.
My first USS team was sister teams with Cariari (she came to our busted pool in Jacksonville to make her Olympic qualifying times for Sydney) and I can tell you it is BY FAR the coldest pool I’ve ever swam in, and we were there in Summer for the Torneo de Verano. I have no idea how the pool is so cold because the sun was strong enough to give one of my teammates sun poisoning when she laid out between events. It’s the only time the 400 IM didn’t hurt because I was already numb from the dive. You can find interviews online where they say they swim in a 15 degree (Celsius —59 Fahrenheit) pool. It is true… Read more »
Not to say their training facilities were tip top, but at least one of them tested positive for using performance enhancing drugs at USA Nationals in the early 2000’s.
Incorrect. Claudia tested positive for metabolites of nandrolone (norandrosterone) at an out of competition test in 2002. They tested her when she was in the middle of practice and while she was menstruating, and the levels she tested for were within levels that could have been endogenous for a 6’4 woman. There were serious irregularities with the testing procedure and even CAS agreed and reduced the ban from 4 to 2 years. Now, it probably would be thrown out altogether because science has advanced.
With all the challenges, the taste of olympic achievement is sweeter…well done young man, well earned.
He’s been a world record holder and is now Olympic champion (despite these training limitations). Surely he has the resources to train in another country, right?
That’s the thing, he wants Romania to be that country where other swimmers think about this. Rather than Romanians themselves.
My interpretation is Popovici is not out for himself and looking to leave Romania. He is trying to improve the conditions of swimming and sports training and facilities within Romania. Did he say in the Podcast anywhere that he was considering leaving Romania?
as a true Stoic he preferes not to leave his comfort zone and try different environment
Man are u challenged
“We somehow came together, but athletes should have them from a young age and be provided by the state, because you end up representing the state.”
I agree, time to nationalize the NCAA
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I think he primarily trains at Dinamo though, though I guess Manoliu is the national team pool (?). He said he’s “lucky” he gets to train at Dinamo, so he didn’t state exactly what % of the time. He said these things right after the Olympics as well, and Dinamo was like “We just want to clarify that we offer him great conditions” and he said “Yes, I was more talking about general conditions for swimmers.” (Awkwardness.)