SPORTS in Romania

1. SPORTS in Romania

2. Oinăis a Romanian traditional sport, similar in many ways to baseball. • It was first mentioned in 1364, when it spread all across Wallachia. Its origins are disputed, theories ranging from a shepherd game to a war game. • In 1899 the minister of education decided that it was to be played in schools in physical education classes. He organized the first annual competitions. • The Romanian Federation was founded in 1932, and was reactivated at the beginning of the 1950s, after a brief period when it was dissolved. • The pitch is a rectangle, 70m long by 32m wide divided into: • the in game area, which is 60x32m; • the batting zone - 5m long - delimited from the in game area by the batting line; • the back zone - a 5m long safe zone during a run - delimited from the in game area by the back line. OINA

3. The attacking side player that has commenced a run will have to cross the following four lines in order: • the start line (the left side of the batting line); • the arrival line (the left side of the back line); • the return line (the right side of the back line); • the escape line (the right side of the batting line). • The game area is split into the advance and return triangles and squares. • At the intersection of the lines inside the game area and the pitch limits or other lines within the game area, there are circles which determine the positions of the midfielders and side players. • The 1m and 3m semicircles are used for batting and serving. • A waiting line is drawn for attacking players to wait their turn to bat.

4. Players • There are two teams of 11 players, one attacking side or "at bat" and one defending side or "at catch". The roles switch at half time. • The defending players are placed in the following positions: • 3 midfielders; • 3 advance side players; • 3 return side players; • 1 back player that is free to move within the back zone • 1 forward player that is free to move within the batting zone • The attacking players change roles as the game progresses. Scope of the game The teams have very different roles depending on whether they are at bat or at catch. At bat players are tasked to open a play and run the lanes until they cross the escape line. At catch players are tasked to hit the players running the lanes with the ball. There can be a maximum of 2 players running each lane at the same time. A player can be hit in both lanes once.

5. Rules The team at bat is selected by a ritual where the players have to grab the bat, thrown by the referee, and the last one to be able to place at least 4 fingers on the bat wins. The game begins with the team at bat, with one of the players throwing the ball while another player of the same team has to hit it with a wooden bat and send it as far as he can towards the adversary field. After that, if the ball is caught by the adversaries, the player can run (if he wishes, or if he is forced to run by the referee) the advance and return corridors/lanes without being hit by the defenders. If he stops the ball with his palm, it is not considered a hit. The player is not allowed to catch the ball, and he must release it immediately. If the player doing a run is hit he goes out of field and into the back zone, or he finishes his tasks, depending on which lane he is running. Ball A spherical ball made of leather, filled with horse, pig, or bovine hair is used in oină. The ball is around 8 cm in diameter and 140 grams in senior games and around 7 cm in diameter and 100 grams in U-18 games. • Comparison with baseball • Similar weight of the ball: around 140 grams for both • Longer and slimmer bat for oină • A game takes only 30 minutes for oină • Oină teams have 11 players; Baseball teams have 9 players • In oină, the defense can score by hitting the attacking players that are in game (running the lanes)

6. NADIA COMĂNECI 1961 Nadia Comăneci is a gymnast, winner of three Olympic gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the first female gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. She is also the winner of two gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She is one of the best-known gymnasts in the world. In 2000 she was named as one of the athletes of the century by the Laureus World Sports Academy. Nowadays she is active in many charities and international organizations. In 1999 she became the first athlete to be invited to speak at the United Nations to launch the Year 2000 International Year of Volunteers. In the world of gymnastics, she is the Honorary President of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, the Honorary President of Romanian Olympic Committee, Sports Ambassador of Romania, and a member of the International Gymnastics Federation Foundation. She and her husband own the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy, the Perfect 10 Production Company and several sports equipment shops.

9. ILIE NĂSTASE 1946 Ilie Năstase is a former world no. 1 professional tennis player, one of the world’s top players of the 1970s. He was ranked world no. 1 between 1973 and 1974. He is one of the five players in history to win more than 100 ATP professional titles (57 singles and 45 in doubles). He won seven Grand Slam titles: two in singles, three in men’s doubles, and two in mixed doubles. He also won four Masters Grand Prix year-end championship titles and seven Championship Series titles (1970–73) He is the second male player to win a Grand Slam without dropping a set and the first one to achieve this feat at the French Open (1973). He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1991. In 2005, Tennis magazine ranked him as the 28th-best player of the preceding 40 years.

11. ION ŢIRIAC 1939 He first appeared on the international sports scene as an ice hockey player at the 1964 Winter Olympics. Shortly after that he switched to tennis as his main sport. With fellow Romanian Ilie Năstase he won the men’s doubles in the 1970 French Open and reached the Davis Cup finals several times in the 1970s. After his retirement, he served as coach and manager for players such as: Ilie Năstase, Guillermo Vilas, Mary Joe Fernández, Goran Ivanišević and Marat Safin. He managed Boris Becker from 1984 to 1993. In 1998 he became president of the Romanian National Olympic Committee. Although tennis is now a small part of his portfolio and occupies only 5% of his time, he has taken particular pleasure and pride in making Madrid Tennis Open a combined men’s and women’s event with €7.2 million in total prize money. In 2013 he was elected into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

12. GHEORGHE HAGI1965 Gheorghe Hagi is a former footballer. He was one of the best attacking midfielders in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s and is considered the greatest Romanian footballer of all time. He led the Romanian team to its best ever international performance at the 1994 World Cup. He still holds the record as Romanian national team top scorer. He is one of the few footballers to have played for both the Spanish rival clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona. At Galatasaray, he was both successful and highly popular among the Turkish supporters. In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA’s Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Romania by the Romanian Football Federation as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.

13. HELMUTH DUCKADAM and STEAUA BUCHAREST 1986 HelmuthDuckadam is a Romanian retired footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He was dubbed "the Hero of Seville" due to his heroics in the 1986 European Cup Final, won by his main club, SteauaBucureşti. Steaua Bucharest football team won the European Champions’ Cup, beating FC Barcelona in Seville 2-0, after penalties. It was then that goalkeeper Helmuth Duckadam succeeded in saving 4 consecutive penalties, making an impressive entry in the World Guinness Book of Records.

15. ROMANIAN GYMNASTS TEAM 2000 SYDNEY 2000: Romania became the first country to have its gymnasts take the gold, silver and bronze medals since the former Soviet Union swept the event in 1960.