Editorial Narcis Drejan – Romania and the Winter Olympics, the grandmother and the machine gun
Article by Narcis Drejan – Published Monday, February 23, 2026, 10:03 / Updated Monday, February 23, 2026 10:03
Everyone understands the principle of the Olympic Games, the idea of participation, the effort of the athletes, but if we ended up praising a 17th place, then it is clear that we like the lie more than anything.
We returned from the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games with a 5th place in men's bob-2 and our old knack for turning exception into national strategy, I mean, honestly, haven't you had enough?
Mihai Tentea and George Iordache pushed Romania to the limit of the podium in a sport where the differences are measured in hundredths, and the investments in millions. They were one step away from a medal in a competition dominated by Germany, a country that does not come to the Olympics with hopes, but with production lines.
The Germans took all the medals in bob-2, and we came with ambition and a system that remembers winter sports only in February, when it snows on TV. It is true that it snowed this winter, but if we go back a little in history and look at the infrastructure, we will see that everything was done in jest. Let's not forget the training on the asphalt, around Predeal, when the Romanian athletes descended on sleds with bearings.
But we have the best result
We are amazed with the 5th place, officially, Romania's best result in the last 34 years at the Winter Games. Wow, 5th place, my god, I was so close, but why did the Germans come with 3 crews?
As Ion Cristoiu would have said: “Who allowed the Germans to participate with 3 teams in bob-2:”. The last superior performance remains the 4th place from 1992, in Albertville, when Ioan Apostol and Liviu Cepoi finished 4th in the men's double sled. Three and a half decades between a 4th place and a 5th place. Three and a half decades in which we slowly lowered the standard until we got excited about the idea that “we were close”.
We are almost everywhere, in every sport, but we reward incompetence, plus general secretaries, accountants, cooks and stokers, especially with an Olympic medal. You saw that even if we get many medals, like in rowing, it's still not good, because rowing is also awarded there. Let's enjoy, then!
Returning to the Winter Olympics, the Romanian delegation reached the finish line and nothing more. Bobsleigh 17th, Julia Sauter 17th in figure skating, luge relay 9th, women's double luge 9th, mixed ski jumping team 12th. Best place in alpine skiing was 30th. Cross-country skiing, 24th in team sprint. In biathlon, 20 in the men's relay.
A long list of attendances and that's about it. But the saddest thing is that the press started with headlines: Remarkable participation of Romania! Superb, no medal, I didn't even smell the podium, but participation is important. But we make it softer with the outstanding participations!
Julia Sauter in action PHOTO Imago Images
Are we still investing?
After a “remarkable” participation, with performances between 17th and 80th place, the question we avoid every time: What do we actually do between two editions of the Olympic Games?
Because athletes do not appear from releases and from “remarkable” participations. They grow up in a system or, in our case, survive in a system, more recently we naturalize them. It's just that we naturalize those who can't do more than one place 17. Romania doesn't have a bobsleigh track, it doesn't have modern centers for ice sports, it doesn't have any broad selection base, it doesn't have a strategy that goes beyond the duration of a mandate. Instead, it has justifications, it has explanations, it has that tired and cretinous phrase: “that's enough”.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan finds a lane and climbs to the podium. Bulgaria also scores in the medals ranking, Estonia invests targeted and reaps results, Georgia makes its way on the sled, Brazil, a country without a genuine winter, manages to win medals in niche sports. The difference is not in sporting DNA, it's in strategy, infrastructure and how the money is invested. Distributing money to dozens of federations means spreading 10 seeds on 10 square meters, then you want results. You can not!
5th place in bob-2 is a real performance and it must be said without irony, Tentea and Iordache had a great race, but their performance is more a testament to individual potential than to the strength of the system. When a good result occurs in an investment desert, it is more like a happy accident than the fruit of construction. The same is the case with David Popovici, the same was the case with Simona Halep. We live on a few exceptions.
We like to talk about “rebirth” every Olympic cycle. We like to think that the next generation will solve what we didn't solve. But without infrastructure, without training centers, without stable funding and without clear 8-12 year goals, the next generation will have exactly the same limits. And in 4 years we will write again that “it is the best result of the last decades”, only that the number will increase, and the 5th or 17th place does not bring anything, only delusion.
If we don't understand that performance is not improvised in the Olympic year, 5th place will remain a lonely peak in a flat landscape. But let's stop this exaggerated joy, because anyway we don't learn anything from the 17th and 30th places!
