Silvia Stroescu

Silvia Stroescu
Stroescu at the 2004 Olympic Games
Full name	Silvia Alexandra Stroescu
Country represented	Romania
Born	May 8 1985 (1985-05-08) Bucharest, Wallachia, Romania
Years on National Team	1998-2004
Club	CSS Steaua Bucharest
Coach(es)	Octavian Belu & Mariana Bitang Angela Cacovean (former)
Current status	Retired

Silvia Alexandra Stroescu (b. May 8, 1985 in Bucharest, Romania) is a Romanian artistic gymnast. She is an Olympic, world, and European gold medalist with the team.

Early Life and Career

She was one of the most successful junior gymnast of her generation. The major achievements of her junior years were the win of the prestigious Top Gym Trophy (1998) and of four medals (two gold and two silver) at the 2000 Junior European Gymnastics Championships. At these championships she won gold on floor (9.725), tied for gold on balance beam with Sabina Cojocar (9.6), earned a share of the Romanian team's silver medal, and placed second all-around (37.973) behind teammate Sabina Cojocar. Initially, Stroescu did not qualify for the all around event due to the two-per-country rule, having achieved the third qualification score among her teammates. But, in the all around final she replaced Carmen Ionescu who withdrew in her favor.

Senior Career

Her senior debut at a major international event was at the 2001 World Championships. Here she contributed to Romania’s sixth team title by competing on beam and uneven bars. Individually, she placed eleventh all around and seventh on floor. Later that year she won the mixed pair Swiss Cup event together with Marian Drǎgulescu. In the period 2002-2003 she did not make the team for major international events but she competed at the national championships and at some friendly international competitions. After being sidelined for two years she joined the team for the 2004 European Championships where she contributed to the team title. Just weeks before the 2004 Olympic games she decided to give up gymnastics being disappointed for not making the Olympic team. However, her disappointment was short lived and she returned to replace an injured Aura Andreea Munteanu. Stroescu went to Athens and was part of an immensely successful Romanian women's gymnastics team (four golds, one silver and one bronze in six events) that also included Oana Ban, Monica Roşu, Catalina Ponor, Daniela Sofronie and Alexandra Eremia. Though the team members were less experienced than most of their rivals, the Romanians hit every routine to take the team gold by a comfortable margin. World champions USA were second, and the Russians, led by Svetlana Khorkina, took the bronze.

Medal Count

Year	Event	TF	AA	VT	UB	BB	FX
1998	Top Gym Trophy		1st
2000	Hungarian International		2nd
	Paris Junior European Championships	2nd	2nd			1st	1st
2001	Ghent World Championships	1st	11				7
	Swiss Cup		1st
	Arthur Gander Memorial		3rd
	Romanian International		2nd
	Massilia Gym Cup		3rd
	Romanian National Championships		1st
2003	Romanian National Championships		5	3rd
2004	Amsterdam European Championships	1st
	Athens Olympic Games	1st
	Romanian National Championships		6