Marian Drăgulescu

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Marian Drăgulescu

Personal information
Full name:	Marian Drăgulescu
Country Represented:	Romania
Date of birth:	December 18, 1980 (1980-12-18) (age 27)
Place of birth:	Bucharest, Romania
Discipline:	Men's Artistic Gymnastics
Level:	Senior International
Gym:	CS Dinamo Bucharest
Head coach(es):	Danut Grecu
Assistant coach(es):	Stefan Gal

Medal record
Olympic Games
Silver	2004 Athens	Floor exercise
Bronze	2004 Athens	Team competition
Bronze	2004 Athens	Vault
World Championships
Gold	2001 Ghent	Vault
Gold	2001 Ghent	Floor Exercise
Gold	2002 Debrecen	Floor Exercise
Gold	2005 Melbourne	Vault
Gold	2006 Aarhus	Vault
Gold	2006 Aarhus	Floor Exercise
Silver	2003 Anaheim	Vault

Marian Drăgulescu (born December 18, 1980 in Bucharest) is a Romanian gymnast. He won four gold medals at the 2004 European championships, making him one of the favourites for medals at the 2004 Summer Olympics. A power athlete, he has long specialised in vault and floor.

Drăgulescu helped his team to a bronze medal and was a forerunner in the all around event until a mistake on the high bar, after which he still thrilled the crowd with a difficult routine. He won silver in the men's floor only after a tiebreaker was needed with gold medalist Kyle Shewfelt. On the men's vault he performed the exceptionally difficult vault that bears his name (a handspring double front with half turn) and received a 9.9, the highest score awarded in World or Olympic competition since 1995. It seemed he needed only to land his second vault to take gold, but he fell. However Drăgulescu was still awarded the bronze, a controversial decision because the disparity between the judges scores was greater than is permitted and therefore some or all of them should have been altered. They were not, and Shewfelt was pushed into fourth place. The Canadian federation filed a protest, but the result stood.

Drăgulescu announced his retirement mid 2005, but has since returned and in the world championships in Melbourne in 2005 he won the vault title. He had long been hampered by the lack of a strong second vault, but debuted a new one- a round off half twist entry to forwards two and a half twist. Since then he has dominated that event, retaining his title at the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark and also taking the floor title. Drăgulescu no longer competes in all six events, which has given him more time to focus on those he does still train. As such, he has gained even more success in his strong events.