Oana Ban

With her early January birth date, Ban missed the eligibility cutoff for the 2001 World Championships by 11 days.[2] She was forced to wait until 2002 to make her international senior debut. At the 2002 World Championships in Debrecen, Ban won a silver medal on the balance beam, one of Romania's only victories of the competition, and placed fourth on the floor finals.[6] Later that year she placed second all around at the Chunichi Cup (behind teammate Oana Petrovschi)[7] and won the Massilia Cup.[8] In 2003, Ban had a similarly strong showing, contributing to the Romanian team's silver medal at the 2003 World Championships and placing sixth in the all-around final.[9][10] That year she successfully competed in several international competitions, winning the all around silver medal at the Gander Memorial behind Cătălina Ponor[11] and the all around bronze medal at the 2003 Chunichi cup behind Andreea Munteanu and Svetlana Khorkina.[12] She also won silver on beam at the 2003 Cottbus Cup[13] and the 2003 DTB Cup[14] and won the Swiss cup together with Marian Drăgulescu.[15]

Oana's career highlight came at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where she, along with teammates Monica Roșu, Alexandra Eremia, Cătălina Ponor, Daniela Șofronie and Silvia Stroescu, won the gold medal in the team competition. Ban contributed heavily to the Romanian victory, competing on uneven bars, balance beam, and floor in the team finals.[16] Individually, she qualified for both the all-around and the floor exercise final.[1] She also placed fifth in the qualifications for the balance beam final but she could not compete due to the two per country rule.[1] Unfortunately, an injury sustained on her last event in the team competition forced her to sit out both competitions and essentially ended her Olympic experience.[2] For Ban, the situation was unfortunate: she had qualified to the all-around in an impressive third place;[1] her qualifying floor score would have been good enough for second place. She was replaced in the floor final by Daniela Şofronie who won the silver medal.[17]