Belu, Bitang and the Golden Dolls

We all knew that the Romanian women’s gymnastics team is one of the favorites for winning the golden medal at the Olympics in Athens. But we also knew that, unlike in Sydney, the Romanian team is a completely new one and this started all the agitation caused by the uncertainty of repeating the performance in Australia. This is why I believe our excitement has been greater.

But the story of our excitement has started a long time ago when a little girl in Onesti, Nadia Comaneci, had the entire world at her feet and us as well. She is the beginning of our story and she will probably be the end of it.

We’ll never be able to forget the way we were waiting with our breath taken for Nadia’s marks, marks awarded by referees, which were victims of the Cold War.

Since Nadia the women’s gymnastics has never deceived or betrayed us. It didn’t give us the chance of forgiving its possible wrong steps. Our stability, our continuity regarding the victory have always been based on the gymnastics.

It is the thing that has appeased our transition from communism to capitalism proving us that it is possible. This is the only thing that, in our memories, shows us the real meaning for work, tradition, talent, ambition and finally victory, success, even for triumph.

And because this fairytale with goddesses, golden dolls and gymnastics had to have authors as well, slowly, the names Octavian Belu and Mariana Bitang rose up above. Without them the story Nadia started would’ve probably ended a long time ago or it wouldn’t have been the never-ending story from nowadays: Belu, Bitang and the Golden Dolls!