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CORINA UNGUREANU
Corina Georgiana Ungureanu (born August 29, 1980, Ploiesti, Romania) is a world-class Romanian gymnast
who competed internationally between 1993 and 1999. She was a member of two gold medal-winning World Championships
teams and was the 1998 European Champion on the floor exercise.
Ungureanu began gymnastics at the Petrolul Ploiesti club in her hometown of Ploiesti, but spent the major part of her
career training in Bucharest under Leana Sima. At the Deva national training center, she was coached by Octavian Belu.
Ungureanu's first international assignment was a junior dual meet between Romania and Germany, where she placed first
with her team and eighth in the all-around. She resurfaced on the international scene again in 1996, when she won the
all-around title at the EcoAir Cup. She did not compete in the 1996 Olympics, but was a member of the gold medal-winning
Romanian teams at the 1997 and 1999 World Gymnastics Championships. She was forced to retire in 1999 due to a spinal cord injury.
After retiring from gymnastics, she sparked some controversy by posing nude for the January 2000 edition of
Playboy Romania. These pictures were reprinted in Playboy Japan in May 2000 and led to her producing a nude
photobook, Corina Ungureanu Photograph Collection, in Japan later that year. In 2002, along with former teammates
Lavinia Milosovici and Claudia Presecan, Ungureanu appeared in two Japanese DVDs,
Gold Bird and Euro Angels, which included scenes of the three gymnasts performing gymnastics routines topless.
A second nude photobook, LCC Gold, appeared at the same time. A number of photographs from the photobook and
DVDs were subsequently published in the Japanese magazine Shukan Gendai. An edited version of the DVDs entitled
3 Gold Girls was released in Germany in 2004.
The DVDs proved controversial as some of the scenes and publicity material featured the gymnasts in their official
Romanian team leotards. It later emerged that they had not been aware of the contractual obligation to wear their official
leotards until filming had already begun. In the wake of the controversy, Ungureanu and her former teammates were banned
from coaching or competing in Romania from 2002 to 2007. To compensate, Ungureanu spent some time coaching in Italy.
In 2004, her authorized biography, Corina Ungureanu: Beginning and End, written by Laurian Stänchescu was
published. Ungureanu is now also a spokesmodel for Bucovina SA, a bottled water company in Romania. She currently manages
a coffee shop called New Haven in Ploiesti with her boyfriend. In early 2007, she took up a coaching position in England,
alongside former colleague Claudia Presecan.
Corina is not known to be related to the Romanian gymnast Teodora Ungureanu
who competed in the 1970s.
For more information, visit her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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