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ANDREEA RADUCAN
Official website: www.andreearaducan.ro
Andreea Madalina Raducan (born September 30, 1983) is a gymnast from Bârlad, Romania.
She competed in artistic gymnastics at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, winning gold in the team event and silver on the vault.
She was also the 1999 and 2001 World Champion on the floor exercise and the 2001 World Champion on the balance beam.
Andreea Raducan was one of the "new generation gymnasts" groomed to take over the torch of Romanian gymnastics
excellence after the retirements of Olympic medalists Lavinia Milosovici
and Gina Gogean. She began gymnastics at the age of four and a half in her hometown of
Bârlad. In 1996, after winning over twenty medals in local and regional competitions, she was invited to train at
the Romanian junior team facility in Onesti. Two years later, she was promoted to the national training center in Deva.
Raducan's first major international event was the 1998 Junior European Championships, where she won a silver medal on
the balance beam, tied for bronze on the floor exercise and took fourth place in the all-around. The next year, she rose
to the senior ranks and made an impact at the World Championships in Tianjin, China, winning the floor exercise final and
placing fifth in the all-around.
While Raducan's work on the uneven bars was considered weak, her skills on beam, vault and floor exercise were applauded.
She was also admired because, unlike other members of the Romanian team, she showed a great deal of expression in her
choreography and a wide variety of complex skills in her routines. At the 1999 World Championships, commentator
Bart Conner noted, "it is so refreshing to see a Romanian (gymnast) who can dance!"
Raducan competed well at the Sydney Olympics, helping the Romanian women to win their first Olympic team gold medal
since 1984. She qualified for the floor and vault event finals, and, along with teammates
Simona Amânar and Maria Olaru,
the all-around finals. In the preliminary round of competition, she had the second highest all-around score of all
competitors in the meet, trailing behind Russia's Svetlana Khorkina by 0.288.
The all-around was mired in controversy. The vault was accidentally set 5 centimeters too low, creating a dangerous
situation that completely altered the gymnasts' pre and post flights. As a result of the incorrectly set vault, many
gymnasts suffered serious crashes and injuries during both the warmups and the competition, including Khorkina. One athlete,
British gymnast Annika Reeder, was hurt badly enough to withdraw from the
remainder of the meet. Even those who escaped injury found themselves shaken by their experiences on the vault. When the
error was discovered by Australian gymnast Allana Slater in the third rotation,
International Federation of Gymnastics officials reset the vault height and allowed the competition to continue. They
did permit the gymnasts who had vaulted in the first two rotations to take another turn on vault and be rescored; not
every athlete accepted this offer.
Raducan was one of the gymnasts who had vaulted on the incorrectly set apparatus but did not suffer a fall on the event
and performed without serious error. She continued through the competition, turning in strong performances on beam and floor,
and ended up with the all-around gold medal. Also on the podium with her were her Romanian teammates; Amânar with silver
and Olaru with bronze. Raducan was the first Romanian gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title since
Nadia Comaneci in 1976. It was also the first time since 1960 that gymnasts from
a single country swept the women's artistics gymnastics all-around podium at the Olympics.
However, several days after the competition concluded, the IOC announced that Raducan had tested positive for pseudophedrine,
at the time, a banned substance. Amânar had also tested positive for Nurofen, but as she was taller and heavier than
Raducan, the substance did not register as being over the allowed amount as it had with her younger teammate.
Raducan and her coaches maintained that she was innocent, and, that as a minor, she had only followed the treatment
plan the team physician, Ioachim Oana, had recommended. The night before the competition, she had been given Nurofen,
a common over-the-counter medication, to help treat a fever and cough. She also said that the pills had made her feel
dizzy instead of helping her in any way.
In spite of strenuous appeals from Raducan, her coaches, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation and certain members of the
gymnastics community, she was stripped of her gold medal. The gold was re-awarded to Amânar, Olaru was promoted to silver,
and former fourth-place finisher Liu Xuan from China was given the bronze medal.
Raducan's test samples from the team and vault event finals were clean; she was therefore allowed to keep the medals she won
in these competitions. The Romanian team doctor who gave Raducan the drug in two cold medicine pills was expelled from the
Games and suspended through the 2002 Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
Both Amânar and Olaru expressed their belief that Raducan was the deserving all-around gold medalist, as did
Liu Xuan, who noted, "I think the all-around champ (Raducan) is very good. I feel very
sad and sorry for her that this problem occurred. I can't make sense of it. In gymnastics we rely on technique to compete
our moves. It's not possibly to rely on drugs or strength, you have to rely on skill." All three declined a formal ceremony
when the medals were re-awarded. Following the announcement that Raducan would be stripped of her medal, Olaru and Amânar
initially decided to refuse their new medals; however, they changed their minds in order to bring the medals back to Romania.
Amânar said of the gold medal, "I didn't win it. It was won by Andreea and belongs to Andreea." She did in fact return
the medal to Raducan back in Romania.
Raducan's case was brought before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the fall of 2000. While the arbitration panel
did concede that Raducan had not gained any advantage by taking the pseduophedrine, and that she was an underage athlete
who had followed her team physician's instructions, they also upheld the IOC's decision. The basis for their decision was
the belief that the Anti-Doping Code of the Olympics had to be enforced "without compromise," regardless of the intentions
or age of the athlete.
Raducan was exonerated of any personal wrongdoing by the Romanian Olympic Committee, and therefore was not subjected
to the lifetime sporting ban usually imposed on athletes involved in doping cases. The Executive Committee of the International
Gymnastics Federation (FIG) also unanimously decided not to impose any suspension or punishment on Raducan, taking the stance
that losing her medal "was punishment enough for an athlete who was innocent in this situation." The FIG, IOC and ROC
all agreed with the punishment and suspension of Dr. Oana, viewing him as the guilty party for administering the banned
substance to Raducan and her teammate.
Despite the controversy, Raducan was still seen as a positive and even sympathetic figure. She received a significant
amount of support in Romania, and members of the gymnastics community, including
Nadia Comaneci, publicly expressed their support. Upon returning to Romania
with her teammates, she was personally greeted and presented with flowers by Romanian President Emil Constantinescu.
Raducan was given a replacement medal in pure gold by a Romanian jeweler; she also received several endorsements and
sponsorships. At one point, a Raducan doll was even rumored to be in the works. In addition, the prize money she would
have been awarded from the Romanian Olympic Committee for her all-around gold was replaced, and doubled, by a group of
Romanian businessmen. She, along with Amânar, was awarded a diplomatic passport by the Romanian government for being
a "good ambassador for Romania."
Raducan continued to train in Deva after the Olympics. With the retirement of her Sydney teammates Amânar, Olaru, and
Claudia Presacan, she found herself as one of the senior gymnasts at Deva. At the 2001 World Championships in Ghent, Belgium,
she was part of the gold-medal winning Romanian team; she picked up a bronze in the all-around and golds on floor and beam.
Injuries and other concerns marred her training in 2002; after a poor showing at the Worlds in Hungary, she quietly retired.
Currently, Raducan is a sports announcer in Romania. Her assignments for EuroSport have included the 2004 Olympics
in Athens. She also has her own television show and does various modeling and promotional work. Raducan is also currently
studying for a Masters degree in Journalism at the University of Bucharest.
For more information, visit her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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