This weekend at the Rio Test Event, the last qualifier for the Olympic Games this summer, teams ranked 9-16 from last fall's World Championships had to compete for the final 4 spots for the Olympics. In the end, Brazil, Germany, France, and Belgium won those four spots, leaving Romania on the outside looking in. Romania, who has medalled in every team final since 1976, will only qualify one gymnast to the Olympics this summer, a spot which will likely go to Larissa Iordache, provided that she will heal from her finger surgery in time.
This is a devastating blow to the Romanian program, who won the European Title not even two years ago. There is something seriously wrong with the federation. A team with as much talent and history as Romania should not be missing the Olympics.
The problem with the Romanian team has nothing to do with the athletes who competed this weekend in Rio, although they will most likely take most of the blame. And while this team did not perform up to their potential on Sunday (and losing Iordache to injury in February definitely hurt their chances a great deal), they should not have been in this position in the first place. A team that won Europeans in May 2014, should not be placing 13th at World's in October 2015, with the addition of many talented first year seniors.
The Federation does not do a good job training their gymnasts. they get pushed aside if there is an injury, or told that they are not needed because of other gymnasts. This is most prevalent in the case of Andrea Munteanu. Munteanu was quite possibly the most talented junior of the quad in Romania, however after the failure to qualify to Rio in 2015, she was pushed aside because of Catalina Ponor, who returned to gymnastics for the 3rd time since her initial retirement. Ponor continues to come back for the Olympics every year, and once the federation hears of her return, they told Munteanu that she was irrelevant. Munteanu lost motivation to train and compete, and was thus passed over for the Test Event. Who can blame Munteanu for losing motivation and burning out? The same thing happened to Ana Porgras last quadrennium, but luckily for Romania they qualified to London regardless and won the bronze medal. Porgras, who was their best gymnast by far from 2009-2011, was burnt out from injury and over training, because she was regarded as the savior of Romanian Gymnastics.
This "collapse" has been coming for a long time. They beg Catalina Ponor and Sandra Isbasa to come back every Olympics, and then push aside their younger gymnasts. There is going to be a time when Ponor will not be able to come back, she is already 27 years old. They have no depth because they rely on the same ten gymnasts, and then are put in a difficult position when someone gets hurt. However, even a healthy Iordache could not have helped the Romanians this weekend in Rio.
There needs to be a restructuring within the Romanian Gymnastics Federation. The people in charge need to step down, and make way for a system that works in the twenty-first century. As Romania has proved twice in the past six months, their system no longer works the ways it did in the 1970s.
What did the power house teams of Romania circa the 1970s have that they no longer have? Besides depth, they no longer have the Karyolis, who defected to America and have built a powerhouse in Texas. With Marta Karyoli stepping down from the head of USA Gymnastics after this summer's Olympics, it might be beneficial for Romania to put their eggs in Marta's basket once again.
