Historic performance! Carol Popa finished in 8th place at the World Junior Championships, the best result in the history of Romanian triathlon

The 19-year-old from Constanta achieved a sensational result at the World Junior Championships in Wollongong. The athlete from CSM Constanța ranked 8th in the sprint event, at the end of a race in which he was permanently in the leading peloton.

Carol Popa finished in 8th place at the Junior World Championships

Thanks to the performances recorded on the European level, where he occupied the first place in the junior hierarchy in 2024, the student of coach Cristi Doicescu started with the number 2 of the competition. Rated with chances in the leading positions, Carol covered the 750 kilometers of swimming in 9 minutes and 38 seconds. As a result, he came out of the water tenth, and after the transition to the bike he left with the first placed.

And he stayed there after the 20 kilometers in the saddle, so everything would be decided on the run. Encouraged all along the route by the president of the Romanian Triathlon Federation, Vlad Stoica, the tricolor also climbed to 5th place during the 5 kilometers, but the distances between the leaders were only a few meters.

Crazy ending

At the end, the pace increased dizzyingly and the fight for the medals went down to the last hundreds of meters. In the end, Carol crossed the finish line after 56 minutes and 4 seconds, just 23 seconds behind the winner, Frenchman Tristan Douche, and just 15 seconds off the podium.

“It is the best result achieved by Romanian triathlon at a World Championship. The race was extremely close, any of the top ten could win. The biggest gain is the maturity with which Carol approached the race, which gives us great confidence for the future. I am very satisfied and proud of this result. We are on the right track,” said the president of the Romanian Triathlon Federation, Vlad Stoica.

The longest journey

Carol's performance is all the more spectacular as the trip to Australia represented the first trip over 10,000 kilometers from the country. As a result, the man from Constanta crossed several time zones and had difficulties adapting, which influenced his evolution.

At the same time, at the beginning of this year, the Constantinian took a break of several weeks due to an Achilles tendon injury, returning to form in recent months, when he won a stage of the European Cup in Istanbul and the title of Balkan champion. In November, he will go to Chile, where he will participate in two stages of the World Cup.