| 15. Alexandra Barac, former Romanian National Team Member (1998 - 2001), gymnastics. Two articles are presented. The first was originally published in ‘Rondul’ on November 24, 2001. The second was originally published on February 20, 2003 in ‘Prosport’. a. Alexandra Barac was born on the 5th of March 1985. Her dream to get onto the highest step of the rostrum in the team competition at the World Championships in Ghent was shattered four months ago, at the training centre in Deva. Alexandra Barac took her first steps in gymnastics at the age of four, at CSS Sibiu, under the guidance of trainers Raluca Bugner, Nicoleta Zaharie and Nicolae Buzoianu. After 8 years of hard work in which Alexandra put her heart and soul into the sport, she was selected for the National junior team in Onesti. Her good results achieved at international competitions, for example first on beam, first on vault, third on bars and first with the national junior team at a competition in China, attracted Octavian Belu's attention and at the age of 13, he selected her for the national team in Deva. From that moment on, Alexandra's biggest dream was to take part at the World Championships in Ghent. Staying at the 'bunker' (that's how Octavian Belu calls the training centre in Deva) for three years, training 7 hours a day, Alexandra did everything possible to prove to both trainers Octavian Belu and Mariana Bitang, that she deserved a place on the team. Even gymnastics experts who saw her at her last competitions, in England, America and France, considered her to be a gymnast with great potential. Unfortunately, when nobody expected it, fate turned against Alexandra and it couldn't have been worse. Almost three months before the World Championships, on the 18th of August, in Deva, during a friendly competition against England, Alexandra had a bad landing on her last apparatus, floor. "I stopped immediately; I felt a pain in my spine. The trainers told me that I should have continued my exercise, but I told them I couldn't. I took a break for three days, and went to the Medicine Centre in Bucharest where I underwent some tests and they told me that it was just a contusion and the pain would disappear in a couple of days. Later, after more detailed tests, the doctor told me that I had two 'rings' out of place in my spine and a herniated disc, so the conclusion was clear: for me gymnastics was over. 'If you want to continue, you need your parents signature' the doctor said to me. It was so difficult for me to hear that. All those years of hard work...for what? I didn't know what to do. What should I choose? The fame of a medal that would be forgotten after a while, or my health, that I will need for the rest of my life. I decided to stop doing gymnastics, although that still hurts now and I think it will hurt for a long time. It was my dream to make it to the top, but...in a second, it was all over. A month before the Worlds, I left Deva and returned home, where, after some treatment, I have to wear a corset for a year," declared Alexandra Barac. She had to watch the Romanian team win the fifth consecutive World title on TV. "When I saw my former teammates standing on the rostrum on first place, I cried with happiness but on the other hand, my heart was filled with sadness. I almost saw myself together with the other girls," she said. Her story doesn't stop there. Alexandra was completely forgotten by 'greedy' Belu and Bitang, who asked the Federation for a billion lei (about $35.000) for the World title but they weren't interested at all about the health of this girl who gave all her best for her country, in the four years that she was part of the national team. "I still have contact with the girls, especially with Sabina Cojocar, who's from Sibiu too, but Octavian Belu, Mariana Bitang and the people of the Federation have completely forgotten about me. They haven't even phoned to ask how I am. That hurts a lot, but it doesn't matter anymore," said Alexandra. After all that happened, gymnastics belongs to the past for Alexandra. However, she wanted to continue in the sport, thinking that maybe in the future, she could become a trainer or even an international judge but Alexandra was hit by another obstacle. She wanted more than anything to attend the 'Onisifor Ghibu' sports secondary school but she was given the cold shoulder by the head of the school and they didn't accept her solely because she wasn't allowed to do gymnastics anymore. At the moment, she's a student in the 10th class at the Art school in Sibiu and she had decided to follow in the footsteps of her uncle and aunt, who are both fine artists. "After gymnastics, art became a passion for me. It's difficult for me to say what I'll do in the future, but I think I will choose art. I would like to thank the head of the Art school because they understood my situation and, I would like to thank my parents, my sister and relatives who were all there for me and helped me to get through this difficult time," she concluded. b. Alexandra Barac was forced to retire in 2001. Alexandra: "My career as a gymnast was over when, in August 2001, my back injury became that serious that I could end up paralyzed." After the medical exam, she returned to Deva and was recommended to stay in bed for two weeks. "Worlds was coming up and Mariana Bitang said that at the World Championships in Ghent, I would only do bars. I was dying of pain in my back and I told her I couldn't go on. After that, they asked my parents to sign a paper so I would stay at their responsibility but my mother said she didn't want that. That she preferred my health over money. On my parents insistence, I received a negative advice from the Sports Medicine Institute," said Alexandra who has now been accepted into and is a student at high school 'Onisifor Ghibu' in Sibiu. Alexandra also adds: "At the Sports Medicine Institute there was a doctor called Ionela Codita. After the magnetic resonance test, my family asked her for a negative advice. Do you know what she answered? A negative advice is only given when you're in a coma! We were all left behind in shock." At the beginning of this year, Alexandra's parents took her to the hospital in Bucharest where the doctor told her to prepare for an operation where they will insert a metal pin in her spine. She's going to go through torture. Alexandra's story gets even worse as she tells what happened on the 31st of March 2000, when she was training with coach Adrian Boboc. "I told him that I had bad pains in my left thigh and that I felt really bad. We were in preparation for the Europeans. He told me: 'If you're that bad, what do you do at competitions?' After that he made me do vault and then immediately bars. I saw it through till the end of the training. When I came back in my room, I asked nurse Eta if she would give me some medicine. I had unbearable pains. My state worsened and the nurse decided to take me to the hospital." Half an hour after she got there, Alexandra was operated on peritonitis. "The doctors apologized to my parents that they made an incision of 8 centimeters. They said: 'Mrs. Barac, you should be happy that she's still alive. There wasn't enough time to transfer her to Bucharest. If we hadn't reacted quickly, it could have ended in disaster. She came in to the hospital really late.' Alexandra's mother gave an interview for Prosport mentioning that all the doctors that she had visited, told her that she had made a big mistake to put her daughter into gymnastics. They are livid with the people of the Federation because she thinks it's unacceptable that the girls on the national team, don't have a medical insurance. Virginia Barac: "After her peritonitis operation, when she almost died, they found she had (gall)bladder stones. After the x-rays, they saw she had problems with her spine. Everybody at the Federation knew this in 2000. It's ridiculous that there's no doctor at the national team. The girls should be checked more often. Nobody knew that Alexandra came home with 18 cavities in her mouth. God, I don't know how it could have got this far." She then talks about that her daughter was slapped and often punished. "When she was 200 grams overweight, the next day she got a yogurt and a slice of bread and don't think she didn't have to train for 8 hours that day. When we visited her, we went there for nothing a couple of times because they wouldn't let us see her under the pretext that we gave her food." |