Sportspeople Awarded by the Romanian President

President Ion Iliescu awarded yesterday both the sportsmen and women who took medals in the Olympic Games in Athens and their trainers and coaches.

The president decided to give awards to the people on the coaching benches on a proposal from Ion Tiriac, president of the Romanian Olympic Committee, and Octavian Morariu, president of the National Agency for Sports.

The highest award, "The National Order Romania’s Star, in rank of Commander", went to Ion Tiriac, Octavian Belu, Mariana Bitang and Elisabeta Lipa.
"I am very glad for getting this award [from the president]. It was about time for our work to get recognition. I did not decide yet if I will give up sports or not. As I said before the only thing keeping me from taking part in the Olympics in Beijing is that a modern sports facility was not yet built at Snagov Lake," said Lipa.

Octavian Belu, the coach of the Romanian gymnastics team, said he is honored by the award, but saddened by the future the Romanian sports will have.
"One must do something with the young these days, take them away from watching television and make them do sports. Unfortunately, many of them do not do sports as youngsters, and so they end up spending a lot of money in fitness clubs when they get older," said Belu.
The other awards going to the winners of Olympic Medals were the Order for "Sports Merits" in the first, second and third rank, respectively.