Gabriela Dragoi was born on 28th August 1992 in Buzau. She has a big family with one brother( Valentin) and three sisters(Claudia, Ionela-Madalina, and Monica-Daniela). Her mother, Elena, was forced to retire, sadly, due to ill-health.
She began gymnastics at 3 and half years, by her parents, at CSS Buzau. She said that she'liked it so much she wanted to go back every day'. Her first coaches were Gabriela Robu and Costica Clinciu. She aspires to be like former Romanian champions, Nadia Comaneci and Andreea Raducan.She began to train at Onesti with the juniors, then in 2005 she moved to Deva with the seniors.
Gabi's favourite apparatus is (predictably) beam. When asked about her least favourite apparatus, she said that she mildly dislikes floor exercise.
Gabi was featured in a Romanian magazine before the Olympics (above)When asked about the Olympics she said that she wanted to medal on beam and may have done so, had she controlled her nerves in the second half of the exercise. She wanted to succeed to surprise everyone. Hopefully in future she will do well enough to medal! After the Olympics, she was named sportsperson of the year of Buzau.
Gabriella has been training a triple twist dismount from the beam for sometime, but didn't want to risk it at the Olympics. Hopefully she will compete it in 2009 and be able to take some beam medals.
When asked about her friends at Deva, she said that she is friends with everyone and then reluctantly named Steliana Nistor, Sandra Izbasa and Alina Stanculescu as her best friends. She is sad now that Steliana and Alina have left Deva.
To her friends she is known as Gabi or Gabitza.
Some facts about Gabi:
Height 1.43 meters
Weight 32 kg.
Coaches: Deva are Nicolae Forminte(Head coach), Liliana Cosma , Marius Razvan Vintila, Lucian Sandu, Florin Cotuţiu(Assistant coach)
Favourite foreign gymnasts: Anastasia Liukin, Chelsie Memmel, Ana Pavlova
Favourite Romanian Gymnasts: Nadia Comaneci, Andreea Raducan, Maria Olaru, Oana Ban, Alexandra Eremia
Favourite School Subjects: Maths, Romanian language, Chemistry, Biology
Music: Dance, hip-hop, pop
Singers: Blodny, Andreea Antonescu, 50 Cent
TV programs: Judgement Day (Romanian reality show) "Yes or Not", " Teo" (the Romanian version of "Oprah"), "Super Nanny", "Mother exchange" -reality shows
Movie, actors: Harry Potter, Titanic; Leonardo Di Caprio
Books: Harry Potter, Hans Christian Andersen
Favourite food: pizza, pasta carbonara, tortelinni, snitzel, fried pressed cheese
Juice: Coca Cola, Fanta
Pet: dogs, cats, rabbits
Deserts: apple, oranges, grapes, peaches, wafers, chocolate
Spare time activities: take walks in the city, watch TV, play; reading and writing
Games: remy, cards, Metropolly
Color : pink, green, blue, red, yellow
Flowers: roses, lily orchids, hyancith
1 comment:
There is a nice article about Gabriela on www.steliana-nistor.net
Gabi lost her father before she started school and mother struggled to look after the 5 children. She had even trouble providing Gabriela with the food she needed as an athlete.
I really admire Gabi Dragoi. She seems to be a true fighter
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