I invited a special lady to guest star on my blog on this very special day. Today we mark 100 days to go until the opening of the Paralympic Games, so there is no better time to meet the extraordinary Paralympic team then directly from Sally Wood Lamont, the President of the Romanian Paralympic Committee!
The Romanian Paralympic team going to London in 2012 will be the largest ever as it will consist of 9 athletes, three times the size of the Beijing team! Florin Cojoc (Iasi) will compete in the Long Jump and just ten days ago he participated in the Croatian Athletics Championships, where he won the gold with a personal best jump of 6.30m, putting him in 6th place in the world rankings. The cycling team comprises Eduard Novak and Imre Torok (both from Miercuri Ciuc). Eduard, now the current World Champion in both the road and track event, is anticipating a gold medal in either of these events in London.
The swimming team has three swimmers qualified – Samuel and Naomi Ciorap (Cluj), brother and sister and Georgiana Bazdoaca but we are still hoping for two more – Valentin Velecico and Petre Prundaru (both from Cluj). The swimming qualification period will end on the 21st May and then we shall have to wait until mid June to know whether all five will be able to go.
The table tennis team has one athlete qualified, Dacian Makszin (Cluj) while Gabriela Constantin (Bucharest) still has an outside chance to go as a reserve. Romanian athlets are are also active in wheelchair tennis, where Ciprian Anton is the star. In spite the fact that Ciprian did not to qualify, we are still hoping he may receive a Bipartite Invitation which would mean our team would represent five sports, again a first!
I am very proud of the team, the performances are extraordinary and I am keeping my fingers crossed for the remaining of the qualifications! I hope you will all join me in supporting them! I would be really curios to know what to think of the team, so if you have any questions for us please leave them in the Comments and will get back to you!
The Paralympic Games take place between 29 August – 9 September 2012 in London.
Sally Wood Lamont
President, Romanian Paralympic Committee