February 2026 marked another Winter Olympic Games edition completed successfully. This time in Italy, Cortina d’Ampezzo and Milan as hosts. Norway made history. Again. I won’t talk about them, as what you need to know about Norway, from which their sport approach heavily derives, can be found in several other posts on my site. I would like to write about my native country, Romania. A country which won only one single medal at the winter Olympics. In the entire history! 1968. A bronze, 58 years ago. That’s it. Romania is a country where it snows. Quite a lot. It is a country which has no excuses to be so low in rankings. OK, the facilities for sport winter are poor, very poor. But Romania is not a poor country! This perception is wrong, especially when it comes to public fund allocation in sports. A bit more I’ve written here.
Romania, only a bronze medal in its whole Winter Olympic Games history!
Of course, at the Winter Olympic Games 2026, Romania didn’t win anything. Only a single 5 spot, apart from that, nothing. “No facilities, no results. This is the best!” OK, stop! There are no facilities, but we did had 29 sportspersons at these Olympics. Exactly 1% from total. It doesn’t look much, but if you transpose the 348 total medals awarded, then it would have been logic, from a math perspective that Romania will get at least 3 medals. Especially that the delegation was bigger than Spain’s, for example, a bigger country. With no Winter Olympic big skills, it is truth, but which still made it to a gold and two bronze. Bulgaria, a neighbor country of Romania, took home two bronze. Both these nations had only 20 representatives. Again, Romania had 29!
Why nobody spoke up for David Popovici?
Many people was lamenting the poor conditions responsible for lack of results. But nobody admits that Romania drags so many poor athletes at so many major events. That is an unnecessary expense. Why would you take athletes who finish 29th, 58th, or 72th? It does not make any sense to fund people with no chances at all for a decent participation, which reasonable means at least a top 10 finish. Some of them where ranked ridiculous low, but nobody mentioned the failure. Some time back, the only world class sportsman Romania has, swimmer and Olympic champion, David Popovici, mentioned, several times, publicly, that there is no proper training swimming pool in Romania. The topic was acknowledged, admitted by politicians, and many promises that things will be fixed came thru. Nothing happened, and never will.
Mediocrity breeds silence
That moment was key, when all athletes, sportspeople in Romania, should have coagulated their voice among David’s and bring up all the real problems that Romanian sport has. But they didn’t. You know why? Because the majority is at most mediocre, knows that, and prefers to keep head down, and participate in several sporting events, where they go only to visit places, without necessary understanding too much anyway, and talk about the lack of investment in facilities only whispering, or in a louder voice years, or decades after their retirement, when these things don’t matter for many generations anymore. If they can matter of all, considering they pile up year after year, decade after decade, and they heavily contribute of lack of performance.
A country with snow can’t compete in the Winter Olympic Games…
Some would say that they are not condemnable, because they might be their best in their sports, nationwide. This can be true, but they are not good enough to compete internationally, and that is important. The “me first” quote stands, but also it shows a pure lack of character, and dignity. In the end, the results are seen by all. A country with 4-5 months of snow has only one bronze medal at the Winter Olympic Games, even if it participated in all editions, but one. The conditions are poor, but money exists. And they are spent very mysteriously. Including by sending generous delegations in ve3ry expensive Cortina d’Ampezzo without having any money. Also, the fact that people doing sports need always to be given something by the Government, is also fake. I have written prior about Mikky Keetels, a Dutch 2:31 female marathon runner who is working as a flight attendant at KLM.
US team members have jobs
Now I am sharing some jobs that US Winter Olympic Game team have! Yep, United States of America. This is a proof that no state is due to any person. Public funds should go only to those who achieve something. If not, of course, they could go, but on their own expense. Is as simple as that, and as logic as that. Sports is like life, what you give is what you get. Nobody obliges you to be active in a sport in which you are mediocre, reason for which you don’t get private funds because this is also understandable, nobody want to spend money on low visibility and, maybe, hopeless causes. Rather you can go and fund educational projects, maybe even social projects, but not mediocre athletic projects. If you don’t agree with me, look at the results. They speak more than thousand words.
Photo source: pixabay.com