“For an educated, healthy Romania, we need to invest more in sports,” says David Popovici, after winning the gold in the 200-meter freestyle and the bronze medal in the 100-meter at the Paris Olympics.
“For an educated, healthy Romania, we need to invest more in sports. This is a message to all the politicians who talk about it, but at some point the message gets stuck somewhere. So, we have to do something! Because you see all the reactions of ordinary people watching TV, people in high positions… everybody is happy, everybody is enjoying, but let’s enjoy more often, why not? Let’s have more Olympic champions, more medalists, more finalists, more Olympic Games qualifiers”, was the message of David Popovici.
He said the medal symbolizes all the training he wished he’d missed but didn’t, “all the late nights training where I couldn’t sleep because of the emotions, maybe for the Olympics”.
“They have pools to put in their heads too!”
“Her weight symbolizes all the sacrifices that I and my close family have made to get here. Look! I keep it and show it because I am very proud of it,” added Popovici.
He also spoke about the training conditions in the country.
“I wouldn’t say (that I am – no) a miracle. But, in the conditions in which we surpassed the British, the Americans, by 200, for example, the Australians, who have infinitely better conditions than ours. They have pools to put in their heads too! They have all the infrastructure they need, they have absolutely everything… training centers upon training centers… So under these conditions I train on Lia Manoliu, in the same pool where I learned to swim at the age of four, that’s why I’m so tanned with the traces of glasses, because I swim there in the open air, and during the winter, because we were always talking about the conditions, when it’s cold outside, because the indoor pool… for a very long time it has been promised that something will be done, but it hasn’t been nothing ever starts, when it’s cold outside we train in a balloon where a person who is not used to it comes in and stays… 3 minutes, comes in and feels like he’s suffocating. Well, in those conditions we train, but… I think it’s possible. We are few, indeed, those who really excel in Romania, in sports, but with the conditions we have, we have to do what we can”, concludes Popovici.
Source: www.descopera.ro
