The evening meal at the Gables’ with the Hawkeye women’s wrestling team, including Coach Clarissa Chun, was among several uniquely-Iowa experiences the Ukrainians had during this fall’s 10-day visit as part of an international training tour – organized out of necessity, given the realities of war have made training in Ukraine increasingly difficult.
Last week's attention-grabbing sports event was hosted by Hungarian capital city Budapest. At the recently-held European Wrestling Championship, Romania sent in a strong delegation, mostly made of young wrestlers. The record did meet the expectations, as the Romanians walked home with four medals, of which pride of place holds the gold medal won in the women's version of the competition by Andreea Ana, in the 55-kilogram category. Reason enough for Radio Romania International to designate Andreea Ana the Athlete of the week.
Andreea Ana's trail at the European championships was indeed blazing; in the quarterfinals, Andreea overpowered Germany's Anastasia Blayvas, 4-nil. Then in the semifinals, Ana defeated Mariana Drăguţan of the Republic of Moldova, 6-nil. Andreea Ana's confrontation in the final was literally dramatic, since the Romanian grabbed a hard-fought 7-5 win against Ukrainian challenger Oleksandra Khomenets. Ana secured her win wi