Marian Drăgulescu

Drǎgulescu's first participation as a senior at a major event was at the 1999 World Championships, where he placed fourth on vault, eight on high bar[3] and 26th all around.[4] One year later he won an all-around bronze, a gold on floor and a silver with the team at the 2000 European championships in Bremen ahead of the Sydney Games. His debut at the Olympic Games in 2000 was rather modest, coming sixth on the floor and 13th in the all-around. He soon overcame the disappointment suffered in Sydney at the world championships at Ghent in Belgium the following year, where he was in top form, winning gold on the floor and on vault. In 2002 he added three more gold medals to his collection on two on vault and with the team and a bronze on floor at the 2002 Europeans and at the 2002 Worlds. For his achievements he was awarded the "Gymnast of the Year Award" (2002) by the International Press Association.[5] He received this award during the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim.[5] Here he won silver on vault, placed fourth on floor in a final in which silver was not awarded, sixth all around and fourth with the team.

The 2004 European Championships in Ljubljana were an especially successful meet for Drăgulescu. He helped his team to defend their title previously won in 2002.[6] Additionally, Marian won the all around title, and gold medals on floor and on vault. The only other gymnast to win four gold medals at a European Championships was Nadia Comăneci, who captured four gold medals at the 1975 European Championships.[7] His success at the 2004 Europeans made him one of the favorites for medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

At the 2004 Olympic Games 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. In 2005 the judges involved were suspended for one year.[7]

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 being a round-off with half twist entry on platform into forward two and a half twist off.

Since then Drăgulescu has dominated that event, retaining his title at the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark and winning the floor title as well. Drăgulescu no longer competed in all six events, which had given him more time to focus on those he still trained.

In 2007, Drǎgulescu participated in the European Championships which turned to be an unfortunate event for him. On floor exercise, he did not manage to complete his routine. After a hard landing to the back of his head on a layout Thomas salto, he twice attempted to run into his final tumbling pass. Instead of tumbling, he stopped and walked off the podium. That afternoon Drǎgulescu competed in the vault final, but missed his second vault (round-off, half-on, 2-1/2 twisting front), landing improperly and injuring his back.[8] Romanian doctors then advised Drǎgulescu to immediately stop training and undergo a detailed investigation in the United States to assess the seriousness of his injury. Hence, he missed the 2007 world championships and resumed training only several months prior to the 2008 Olympic Games.[9]

Although Drǎgulescu made the vault finals at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, history repeated itself and, as in Athens 2004, he fell on his second vault after an almost faultless first vault (which scored a 16.800), losing his chance to win his first Olympic Gold Medal. However, unlike in Athens, Drǎgulescu did not medal on any event, placing fourth on vault with seventh on team and floor.[10][11]

Drǎgulescu was very disappointed when he failed to medal at the Beijing Olympics, saying "my soul broke" after he fell on the landing of his second vault attempt. He announced his retirement and his intention to become a gymnastic coach.[12] However, he reconsidered retirement and went to compete in Germany for Fabian Hambüchen's club, KTV Straubenhardt. In the club's first three competitions, Drǎgulescu competed on floor and vault, obtaining the league's top scores on the latter event: 16.500 in the first two competitions, and 16.300 in the third one.[13] The club won the second place in December 2008.[14] After competing in the German league Dragulescu formally announced his retirement. He went to coach gymnastics alongside his former team colleagues Marius Urzică and Dan Potra at Dinamo Club Bucharest. He declared that his goal is to create a gymnast better than himself.[15]

Marian Drăgulescu, Flavius Koczi and Anton Golotsutskov at the 2009 World Championships

In 2009, Drǎgulescu once again reconsidered his retirement from gymnastics. He had a very successful comeback winning the floor and the vault titles at the 2009 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

In 2010, Drǎgulescu skipped the European Championships and Romanian Nationals but was a member of the Romanian team at the World Championships. There, he only competed on vault, floor and high bar, but did not qualify for the team or any individual final.[16] After skipping 2011's spring competition season, Drăgulescu made another comeback in the Romanian Nationals at the end of August.[17] This competition marked his comeback as an all-around gymnast after a break of seven years. In October, he joined the team at the 2011 World Championships and competed in the preliminary rounds, helping them qualify for the 2012 Olympics. Individually, he made the all-around, floor and vault finals giving him a chance to regain his titles, but due to injury, he could not compete and withdrew from all three finals.[18]

Drǎgulescu participated in the 2015 Israel Cup winning gold in vault. Meanwhile, he has been training a new skill, potentially the "Drǎgulescu 2", which is a Drǎgulescu with a full twist instead of ½.

On 1 November 2015 Drǎgulescu participated in the 2015 World Championships held in Glasgow, Scotland, and won the silver medal in the individual vault event final with an average combined score of 15.400.[19] His two vaults were the "Drǎgulescu" or front handspring double (tucked) somersault with ½ twist, his own skill, and "Li Xiaopeng" or a "half on–2½ off" with D-scores 6.0 and 6.2. Ri Se Gwang of North Korea won gold (15.450) with own D-score 6.4 vaults, the "Ri Se Gwang 1" and "2". It was noted that the 34-year-old Drǎgulescu was the oldest individual vault finalist at these championships.

Drǎgulescu (age 36) participated in the 2016 European Championships held in Bern, Switzerland in May 2016, tying Armenian Artur Davtian for silver on vault with a score of 15.316 and also winning silver on floor with a score of 15.333.[20]

At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro that August, Drǎgulescu participated in and qualified for the event final on vault. In the conclusion of the event, his average combined score was tied for the bronze medal with Japanese teenager Kenzo Shirai, but after applying the Olympic tiebreak rules to both scores, Drǎgulescu was relegated to fourth place due to Shirai's massive combined score on his first vault, which was brought on by the total of his scores in two parts, the final's highest execution score of 9.466 and second highest difficulty score of 6.4, for the successful completion of the now officially named "Shirai 2" or 3½-twisting Yurchenko on vault, a new and an extremely difficult skill, in competition. In Drǎgulescu's best Olympic performance of the same two vaults he had been using for many years now, and they were once again the "Drǎgulescu" (a handspring double front tucked with ½ twist to land; D-score – 6.0) and "Li Xiaopeng" (Yurchenko, ½ twist on with 2½ twists in layout off; D-score – 6.2). However, he still lost. This was also the second time that the tiebreak had not worked in favour of Drǎgulescu at the Olympics. The first time happened at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens where he missed out on the gold medal and settled for silver when he tied for the highest score with 9.787 in the individual floor exercise apparatus finals. After applying the tiebreak, Kyle Shewfelt of Canada ranked ahead in first with Drǎgulescu relegating to second place.

In 2017, Drǎgulescu was once again selected to represent the host Romanian team at the 2017 European Championships. He won gold in the floor exercise event final, his first victory at the European Championships in 11 years. He followed up his success at the championships in vault the next day, winning the silver medal.

At the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Drǎgulescu finished the individual vault final in fourth place with an average combined score of 14.716. He had simplified his second vault to the "½ on–double full off" instead of his usual, the "Li Xiao Peng". Kenzō Shirai of Japan, the man Drǎgulescu tied for the third highest final score in the individual vault final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, won the gold medal with a score of 14.900. Drǎgulescu was again the oldest individual vault finalist at 36 years, 9 months and 20 days old.

At the 2019 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Drǎgulescu repeated his 2017 performance by placing fourth again in the individual vault final with an average combined score of 14.624. He had also stayed with the same simplified second vault he competed at these championships in 2017. Once more, he was the oldest individual vault finalist, this time at 38 years, 9 months and 25 days old.

Drǎgulescu had previously qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo as a specialist in the opening rounds of two individual events—floor exercise and vault—but he ultimately chose to not compete the individual floor exercise apparatus and fully focus only on vault. His qualification scores on vault were 13.466 and 14.533 to average 13.999 and place 16, which did not qualify him for the finals. Competing in individual vault qualifications, Drǎgulescu was 40 years, 7 months and 6 days old.