The first major sporting event of the year in athletics was hosted by Istanbul in Turkey. The European Indoor Athletics Championships brought together roughly 600 athletes from 47 countries and Romania was represented by 14 athletes, 7 in the men's competitions and 7 in the women's contests. Four of them had made it to the finals of their competitions: Claudia Bobocea in the 15 hundred meter race. Alina Rotaru and Gabriel Bitan in the long jump event and Gabriela Stanciu in the high jump contest. Bitan won bronze in the event and Bobocea became silver medalist and has also been designated Athlete of the Week by Radio Romania International.
We recall that Romania also put up a good show at the 2015 indoor edition in Prague, when Marian Oprea became bronze medalist in the triple jump event and Florentina Iusco in the long jump event. At the latest edition in Torun, Poland, the best Romanian performance was obtained by Daniela Stanciu who came fifth in the high jump contest. In Istanbul, Stanciu ranked seventh and Alina Rotaru fifth.
Gabriel Bitan has won for Romania the first European medal in the men's long jump event since the silver obtained by Bogdan Ţăruş in 2005.
However, the most interesting performance was obtained by Claudia Bobocea in the 15 hundred meter race, where she obtained the best time in her entire career, 4 minutes, 3 seconds and 76 hundredths. She was outperformed by multiple world and Olympic medalist Laura Muir, of Britain who ended the race only 36 hundredths before the Romanian athlete. Sofia Ennaoui of Poland came third in the race.
Claudia Bobocea was bron in Bucharest on 11th June 1992 and took up athletics in 2007. She has always been among the world's fastest runners in middle-distance races, although she has failed to obtain medals in major competitions.
In 2016, she qualified for the 800 meter race in Rio Olympics but unfortunately went 51st. She obtained her best indoor performance in 2019 in Glasgow, when she ended the race in the seventh place, so the medal in Istanbul is her best performance so far.