Romania wins nine medals at 2021 European U23 Weightlifting Championships

Team Romania competing in the 2021 European Junior & U23 Weightlifting Championships in Rovaniemi, Finland, ended the competition with nine medals: three gold, three silver and three bronze medals, according to the Romanian Weightlifting Federation.

The gold medals went to Cristian Luca (CS Dinamo Bucharest) in the men's 55 kg division for lifting 112 kg in the snatch, 131 kg in the clean and jerk, and 243 kg in the total.

Also in the 55 kg division, CS Olimpia Bucharest's Valentin Ionadi Iancu won the three silver medals for lifting 108 kg in the snatch, 131 kg in the clean and jerk, and 239 kg in the total.

Winning the three bronze medals for Romania were Andrei Ciobanu (SCM Bacau) in the men's 102 kg division for 162 kg in the snatch, 187 kg in the clean and jerk, and 349 kg in the total.

In the women's 81 kg division, Alexandra Alexe (CSM Dunarea Galati) finished in 4th in the clean and jerk event with a 116 kg lift, and in 6th in the snatch with an 89-kg lift, and also in the 6th in the total for 205 kg .

In the women's 55 kg division, Larisa Dinca (CS Olimpia Bucharest) finished in 5th in the clean and jerk event with a 90 kg lift; 8th in the snatch with a 67 kg lift, and 7th in the total with 157 kg.

Romanian Bianca Dumitrescu of CS Farul Constanta received the fair play award of the European Weightlifting Federation (EWF) for sporting conduct during the European U23 Championships in Finland.

After being validated for the women's 45 kg division, she could no longer compete as she had to get temporarily isolated with some of her teammates after one of them seemingly tested positive for COVID-19 in a rapid test upon arrival in Finland. However, it turned out to be a false-positive test result. Unfortunately, the negative result of the RT-PCR retest was not provided in time for the validation of the athlete when weighted for the competition.

Dumitrescu later performed in a special session and was presented the award by multiple Olympic and world medallist Lasha Talakhadze of Georgia, officials of the organising committee and the Finnish Weightlifting Federation.