| 23. Oana Petrovschi. Romanian National team member 2001-2003. Article published January 29, 2004 in 'Gazeta Sporturilor'. |
| Shocking revelations from Oana Petrovschi The rooms are searched for sweets and food that's found is filmed by the trainers like the police films a drug bust. Letters are opened. Personal journals are read and laughed about in front of everybody. Oana Petrovschi tells her story to Robert Berza. 8 months have passed since Oana Petrovschi left Deva with a serious back injury. Her career is over so she decided to talk to try and change something so the girls in the team will be treated more humanely from now on. You can read the anger on her face but also revenge, regret and sadness. "I dreamt of going to Athens," she says with a determined look on her face, a look that persisted on her face during the entire interview which lasted 3 hours. Oana explains why she's so upset right now. It's simple, she had to give up gymnastics and it's because of the coaches on the team as they made her train while she had a negative advice from the National Sport Medicine Institute. "When the doctors in Bucharest tell you that you have to stay away from the gym, at the National team that translates in to getting up on bars, even though you're doing easier routines but in no case will they let you rest in bed." The interviewer, Robert Berza wants to go back to how it all started and mentions that she had an ankle injury and then two hernias in her back showed up so Oana explains that she got injured in Paris, a three degree fracture and a ligament pull but it was a stupid injury and she knew she would recover soon but she didn't because her schedule didn't respect her current health situation. Her ankle was in a plaster cast and she had a negative training advice. Oana: "Belu was away with two gymnasts and Bitang made me train on bars. With the cast on my right leg I had to do giants and transitions from one bar to the other for almost two weeks. To keep me balanced, she put a couple of bags of sand on my left leg. One was tied to my ankle and weighed 1.2 kg. The other was tied to my knee and weighed a kilogram. I have worked like this before but for physical training. That's a normal procedure but under no circumstances for routines on an apparatus." She then explains that the cast she had first was light but it broke during the first training so she had to get another one more resistant and heavier. She even had to do landings! Coaches Lucian Sandu and Benone Peretean would catch her and tried to ease the pain but not much. That's when her back problems started. The doctors explained to her that because of the cast and the bags of sand, the centre of gravity was shifted and that's when the stress fractures showed up. The 7mm one is dangerous because if she moves too suddenly, the fracture could hit a nerve and she could be paralyzed. So the logical thing to ask is why didn't Oana refuse to go into the gym? She answers: "Well, who in the team has the courage to not to do what the trainers say? You can pack your bags as I've heard before. Bitang once said to me: 'Go, go to the country, go and breed pigs and hens if you don't want to listen.' And on another occasion when I was a couple of hundred grams overweight she told me to go home where I would definitely lose weight. She said: 'Those who don't have anything to eat start gymnastics!' I didn't have the courage to confront her. I dreamt of the Olympics and a wrong word could put me out of the team so I shut up. Also when she called me cow, animal, moron and idiot. Oana talks mostly about the confrontations with Bitang and explains that she thinks Belu is more understanding. "At the training, when a gymnast made a lot of mistakes or if she was too fat, Bitang shouted at Belu: 'Go to her and kick her out! Don't you see she's like a cow.' And Belu went to the girl and said quickly: 'Go out!' It happened to me too. I went out of the gym, I stayed out for a bit and came back in and went to Belu to ask if I could work again and he would say: 'Go and talk to Mariana! She has to give you permission!' he said. Then Oana talks about the money they have to give to the coaches it's not in a written understanding and it was Andreea Raducan, who helped her integrate at the beginning, who explained that they had to give them 30%. If you didn't give the coaches the 30%, they wouldn't send you to competitions. You don't win anything but they will get the money from another gymnast who doesn't refuse to pay. I've got about 8000 euros left, I paid them about 3 to 4000. Only in Paris I won 6.900 euros. In England I lost my wallet with the prize money in it and even though the coaches believed me, I still had to pay them the 30% to teach me a lesson because I didn't take care of my money so I paid them from prize money I won before. |