| Roxana Popa Nedelcu | |
|---|---|
 Popa at the 2020 Olympic Games | |
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Full name |
Roxana Daniela Popa Nedelcu |
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Nickname(s) |
Roxi, The Spanish Nadia Comaneci |
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Country represented |
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Born |
June 2 1997 |
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Club |
Los Cantos Alcoron |
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Coach(es) |
Lucia Guisado, Raquel Garcia |
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Current status |
Retired |
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Roxana Daniela Popa Nedelcu (born June 2 in Constanţa) is a retired Romanian-born Spanish elite gymnast and 2020 Olympian. She is a three-time Spanish National Champion (2013, 2014, and 2021) and trained at Los Cantos Alcoron in Madrid. Her best events are uneven bars and floor exercise. She speaks Romanian, Spanish, English, and a little French.[1]
Featured Gymnast for April 2014
Early Career[]
Popa moved to Spain with her family when she was six years old.[2] She competed at the Spanish Nationals in 2008, and despite winning everything, she did not make the podium as she didn't yet have her Spanish citizenship. When she was finally cleared to compete for Spain, she sustained an elbow injury training on uneven bars, which required surgery and intensive rehab, leaving her out of competition for a few years.
Junior Career[]
Popa represented Spain at the 2012 European Championships in Brussels. She qualified to the all-around and vault final, and was a third reserve for the floor final. She ended up placing sixth in the vault final and eleventh in the all-around.
Senior Career[]
2013[]
Popa's senior debut came in 2013, at the Cottbus World Cup, where she unfortunately did not make any event finals. Later that month, she was named to the Spanish team for the European Championships.
At the European Championships, she qualified fifth into the all-around and seventh to the floor exercise final. She placed sixth in the all-around final and seventh on floor exercise.
In June, she competed in the Mediterranean Games. However, she had a bad landing in the warm-up prior to the all-around and sat out the rest of the competition. The injury was not serious, and Popa was well enough to sweep the Spanish National Championships the following month.
She was named to the Spanish team for the World Championships at the end of summer. In qualifications, Popa qualified tenth to the all-around, but missed out on the event finals. She placed a respectable twelfth in the all-around.
Popa was announced as a competitor for the Mexico Open in November and the Glasgow World Cup in December.[3][4] In Mexico, she struggled a little on the first day of competition, placing fourth, but came back strong to win the gold medal, 0.200 points over the silver medalist, USA's Peyton Ernst. In Glasgow, things started out rough, when she bailed on her double-twisting Yurchenko vault for not getting the block she needed, and performed a very simple Yurchenko layout vault. She performed well on her other three events and finished fifth.
2014[]
In January, she was announced as a competitor for the American Cup in early March.[5] In early February, she was announced as a competitor for the Tokyo World Cup in April.[6] At the American Cup, she had good vault and beam rotations, but hit her feet on her Pak salto on bars. On floor exercise, she impressed the crowd with her floor routine and finished in sixth place. At the Tokyo World Cup, she won silver in the all-around behind Italy's Vanessa Ferrari and ahead of USA's Maggie Nichols. Later that month, she competed at a friendly meet against gymnasts from Great Britain and Germany, winning all-around gold and team bronze.
In early May, she competed at the Spanish Cup, winning every event except balance beam, on which she finished in fifth place. A few weeks later, she competed at the European Championships, placing sixth with her team, seventh on floor exercise, and eighth on uneven bars. In July, she competed at the Spanish Nationals, defending her title in the all-around and winning gold on every individual event except balance beam, where she won silver. In early September, she competed at the Novara Cup, winning silver with her team. In October, she competed at the World Championships in Nanning, China. Disappointingly, she just missed the floor exercise final, but qualified to the all-around and helped Spain finish fifteenth in qualifications, qualifying a full team to the next World Championships. Popa placed thirteenth in the all-around.
Following Nanning, Popa won the all-around at the Blume Memorial in November. She was scheduled to compete at the Mexico Open and was considered the front-runner to win, but suffered a knee injury in training the morning of the competition and withdrew.[7] The injury was diagnosed as a torn ACL and meniscus, and required surgery.[8][9][10][11] Upon diagnosis, her doctors discovered the injury was an old one, and had gone unnoticed until December. Her recovery took about six months.[12]
2015[]
Popa missed most of the season due to her recovery from her knee surgery. She was well enough to compete on the uneven bars at the Novara Cup, earning the third-highest score on that event, and helping the Spanish team place fourth. She was named to the Spanish team for the World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, again only competing on bars, but had a fall and didn't make the event finals. Spain finished qualifications in seventeenth place, missing out on qualifying a full team to the Olympic Test Event in April.
2016[]
Popa was poised to represent Spain at the Test Event in April, and eventually the Olympics in August. However, she re-injured the meniscus in her knee in late March, leaving her out of competition for the rest of the year.[13]
2017-2020[]
Popa resumed training in September 2017.[14] Following a long recovery, she returned to competition at a domestic meet in February 2019. She only competed on balance beam, but suffered a fall. She competed the all-around for the first time since her injury at the Spanish National Championships in July. She placed fourth in the all-around and won silver on the uneven bars. She returned to international competition at the Szombathely World Cup in September, winning bronze on uneven bars. In October, she competed at the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. She placed sixth on floor exercise, and helped Spain qualify a full team to the 2020 Olympics.
In 2020, she competed at the 2nd Spanish League competition in the 1st division. She competed on two events, the uneven bars where she won gold, and the balance beam where she won bronze.
2021[]
Popa competed at the Flanders International Team Challenge in Belgium in late June, winning gold on floor and placing fifth with her team and seventeenth in the all-around. She was named to the Spanish team for the Tokyo Olympics afterwards.[15]
Tokyo Olympics[]
Popa competed in the fourth subdivision, starting on floor exercise. She placed twenty-first in the all-around, qualifying her to the final, where she finished twenty-second after falling on uneven bars.
Post-Olympics[]
In December, Popa competed at the Spanish National Championships, winning all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam gold, vault silver, and placing seventh on floor exercise.
Popa announced her retirement in late May of 2024 on her Instagram.[16]
Medal Count[]
| Year | Event | TF | AA | VT | UB | BB | FX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Brussels Junior European Championships | 11 | 11 | 6 | |||
| 2013 | Moscow European Championships | 6 | 7 | ||||
| Spanish National Championships | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | ||
| Antwerp World Championships | 12 | ||||||
| Mexico Open | 1st | ||||||
| Glasgow World Cup | 5 | ||||||
| 2014 | AT&T American Cup | 6 | |||||
| Tokyo World Cup | 2nd | ||||||
| Munich Friendly | 3rd | 1st | |||||
| Spanish Cup | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 5 | 1st | |
| Sofia European Championships | 6 | 8 | 7 | ||||
| Spanish National Championships | 1st | 1st | 1st | 2nd | 1st | ||
| Novara Cup | 2nd | ||||||
| Nanning World Championships | 13 | ||||||
| Joaquim Blume Memorial | 1st | ||||||
| 2015 | Novara Cup | 4 | |||||
| 2019 | Spanish National Championships | 4 | 2nd | ||||
| Szombathely World Cup | 3rd | ||||||
| Stuttgart World Championships | 6 | ||||||
| 2020 | 2nd Spanish League | 1st | 3rd | ||||
| 2021 | Flanders International Team Challenge | 5 | 17 | 1st | |||
| Tokyo Olympic Games | 22 | ||||||
| Spanish National Championships | 1st | 2nd | 1st | 1st | 7 |
Floor Music[]
2009 - "Taniec Eleny" by Michał Lorenc
2012 - "Czardas" by Mägo de Oz
2013-2014 - "Tico Tico" by David Garrett & Arturo Sandoval/ "Delicado" by Raul Di Blasio
2014-2019 - "Ameksa" by Taalbi Brothers