Ana Maria Popescu’s message for Minister Eduard Novak. Photo: video capture
The Minister of Sports, Eduard Novak, won a silver medal in Tokyo, and shortly after this performance, the athlete Ana Maria Popescu sent a message on her Facebook page, in which she congratulated him for the outstanding result. “Good news from Paralympic Games Tokyo 2021. Eduard Novak brings the first medal for the Romanian delegation, silver in the C4 track test on the track. Congratulations! ”, Is the message posted by the sportswoman.
On July 24, Ana Maria Popescu also won the silver in the sword, being Romania’s first medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
His performance ended in the middle of an exchange of remarks with the Minister of Sports, Eduard Novak.
The exchange of remarks started after Minister Eduard Novak reacted to a first statement of the sportswoman. She said she hoped the money in Tokyo would be enough to provide a “common sense budget for Romanian fencing.”
Shortly afterwards, Eduard Novak declared: “In my opinion, even if the budget of the fencing federation was 5 million lei higher, Ana Maria could not win or not win the gold medal”.
Upon arrival in the country, Ana Maria Popescu asked the minister to take the gold medal at the Olympic Games and refused to shake hands with him at the airport.
Later, Eduard Novak said that he was “very, very, very sorry” and that “his misunderstanding was misunderstood”. In her turn, Ana Maria Popescu responded, on Facebook, to the Government official, saying that she appreciates his message and that she apologizes for the gesture by which she did not shake Novak’s hand, when she returned to Romania.