Iohannis congratulates Romania's epee team for Olympic gold

President Iohannis congratulates Romania’s women’s epee team for winning Gold in Rio

Newsroom 12/08/2016 | 15:41

President Klaus Iohannis congratulated on Friday Romania’s women’s epee team for winning the Gold medal at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

“Congratulations to our women’s epee team, which last night won the gold at Rio 2016! Through their talent, strength of character, and after thousands of hours of training, Simona Gherman, Ana Maria Popescu, Simona Pop and Loredana Dinu managed to bring Romania on the highest position on the Olympic podium, making an entire country proud of their performance.”

Romania’s women’s epee team won the gold medal on Thursday in Rio after defeating China, the reigning team epee gold medalists, 44-38. This is the first time Romania wins gold in a fencing team event and the medal is Romania’s first at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

Ana Maria Popescu said on Friday that the gold medal belongs to the “kids” in the juniors’ selections, who were our training partners while training.

“This result belongs to those who helped us. And you should know they were few, there were ten colleagues who helped us (…) Those children used their time, they took time from their holidays to come and help us. We couldn’t afford to make mistakes like in London, to train with another team. It was our only option to practically use these kids. So it is their merit too that we are here (…) I would like them to be helped, because otherwise…” Ana Maria Popescu, Olympic champion in the women’s epee team event.