Photo credit: (c) CRISTIAN NISTOR/ AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Other sports have their legends, too; in the past, Tulcea County has hosted many national and international athletic competitions. Stan Gheorghe’s book ‘Pages of Tulcea County sports history’ underlines the importance of the foundation of the European Commission of the Danube (CED) in 1856; it contributed to the development of sports in the region. According to this source, CED and the Romanian Royal Yacht Club organized what appears to be the first Romanian regatta in 1887 in Sulina, the easternmost town of Tulcea County, at one of the Danube’s mouths at the Black Sea. Seven years earlier, the town of Tulcea, the county seat and back then a free port, held extensive sailing and fishing rowing boat races and swimming contests across the Danube. Romania’s first long-distance swimming contest on the Danube was held in 1912 between Ghecet and Macin. Between 1952 and 1970 (with interruption between 1960 and 1968), the Very Long Distance Kayak and Canoe Race was held between Corabia (some 600 kilometres upstream) and Sulina. From 1975 through 1986 the town of Macin hosted international Greco-Roman wrestling events. Balkans’ boxing championship of 1977 was held in Tulcea; Romania got 7 champion titles. Tulcea also provided the venue for the 2005 qualification matches for the Men’s European Volleyball Championship and for the first international minifootbal matches of Romania, in 2011.

Tulcea County natives Dumitru Alexe and Simion Ismailciuc won the gold medals of the 1000 meters canoe sprint in 1956, in Melbourne. Vasile Daba, born in Jurilovca in 1956, was the first Romanian Olympic champion of kayak; the first to see his paddle break during the qualification race for an Olympic semifinal was Ivan Patzaichin of Mila 23. He went on with the shaft, crossed the line and went on to gold. When journalists asked him what he felt when the incident occurred, Patzaichin answered, ‘in a split second, I thought of Mila 23 and I decided to give my best to get to the finish line.’ His Olympic titles kept coming; he ended being champion 30 times at the Games and at World Championships, as recorded in the aforementioned book. Nicolae Fedosei faced the same problem. After finishing first with team Romania at the World Championships of Tampere (Finland) in 1983, his paddles began breaking one week before the next years’ competition. ‘The team’s carpenter reassured me saying he got a new lot of paddles. Then old Costica kept assembling two or three paddles a day; they broke upon the first start, and he began panicking about the chances that I break all the 20 pieces he got. After the first 15, he mounted a reinforced one, three or four hundred grams heavier, which I used for the race,’ sports reporter Ioan Eugen Diaconu quoted Fedosei in 2001.

Ivan Patzaichin is the only former champion of Tulcea involved in kayac and canoeing activities. After his retreat in 2010, he founded the Ivan Patzaichin — Mila 23 Association, linking his name to his native village in the Danube Delta. ‘I have always been and I still am very strongly bounded to the Delta, my birthplace, the place where I learned to row and paddle and where my respect for man and nature was built. I wish Rowmania [his brand for promoting ecological tourism] help the Delta become the queen of European ecological tourism as soon as possible. Therefore, most of our activities are dedicated to this region, to help communities identify the best solutions for developing local economy,’ Patzaichin said.

Photo credit: (c) ALEX TUDOR/ AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Another goal of his association is to involve children in athletic activities, all the more that the commune of Crisan alone gave 23 world and Olympic champions of rowing and paddling disciplines, then not a single Romanian champion for 15 years came from the Delta. Moreover, many locals now see rowing as humble work. This is the context for approaches in collaboration with the Tulcea County Council and the Municipality of Tulcea to set up the first Olympic canal for rowing competitions in Romania, which would also be the first ecological rowing canal in the world. It is planned on a length of 2,400 meters, 400 meters wide, on an area undergoing renaturation, near the town. It would be dedicated to professional athletes. Until works are completed, Delta’s visitors are invited each year between August 30 and September 1 to the International Rowing Boat Festival — Rowmania Fest, hosted by the town of Tulcea. It is a unique event in Eastern Europe and a platform for the recovery of rowing boat tradition, combining sports and open air activities with show and outdoor events.

Elena Fidatov Moruzov is a living legend of Tulcea athletics. World champion of half marathon with the Romanian team in Oslo (Norway) in 1994, and in Monbeliard (France) in 1995; European champion with Romania’s cross country team in Alnwich (UK) in 1994; her and her colleagues’ performances put Tulcea on the map of Romanian athletics. Another name in Romanian athletics, Ilie Floroiu, was born in 1951 in the village of Izvoarele; he competed for Farul Constanta club, defeating the best long-distance runners of his years; two of his national records, on 5,000 and 10,000 meters, set in 1978, still stand. Maybe the athletes of the Turcoaia chapter will beat them one day.

The sports history in Tulcea County would be incomplete without Dumitru Manea’s performances in Greco-Roman wrestling — bronze at the World Championships of Katowice (Poland) in 1972.

Team sports also made Tulcea County’s pride. The men’s volleyball team was among the favourites, playing the 1st division between 1975 and 1985. It returned in the top league in 1991 and stayed there until 1995, when coach Alexandru Stanciu retired. Its second comeback occurred in the 1999-2000 season, and Deltacons team became vice champion of Romania next year. In 2002-2003, the team was champion for the first time, a title it defended over the next season, when it also played the final of the Top Teams Cup, European club’s second high competition. Deltacons was the first men’s team to reach this level since the introduction of the Final Four tournament in the early 1990’s.

Photo credit: (c) CRISTIAN NISTOR/ AGERPRES ARCHIVE

One of the most elegant fighters in the 1930’s boxing was Aurel Toma, styled ‘The Champions’ Nightmare’; he was born on July 30, 1911 in the town of Babadag, in Tulcea County. He was the first Romanian boxer to enter the ring of New York’s Madison Square Garden, and the only one to build himself a professional career in the United States. In 1938, he terminated the carer of Scotsman Benny Lynched, a world and European flyweight champion whom no one else had knocked out. Toma’s record in America — 19 wins, 9 losses, 4 draws — is unique among Romanian fighters. His name is now on the frontispiece of the sports hall of his native town; since 2013, Babadag holds an annual competition named after him, to honour his memory.

Other disciplines also achieved remarkable results on national level, with Tulcea County juniors honourably competing in domestic and international competition, though many of them are members of athletic clubs throughout Romania. An athlete’s performances equally require their own perseverance and best judgment, their teachers’ qualities, and training conditions. Many youths of Tulcea got what it takes to become great, but only time will tell how many of them will find the passion and wish to outdo their masters, adding to the sports’ — or other professions’ — legend.AGERPRES