Popovici, the Bucharest dragonfly

The fastest swimmer in the world is not from Baltimore (United States) or Sydney (Australia), where two phenomena such as Michael Phelps or Ian Thorpe and in the two most charismatic swimming countries. Nor has it emerged from China’s disciplined high-performance centers, nor from Marseille (France) or London (England). Nor the icy Lesnoi (Russia) by Alexander Popov. The fastest swimmer in the world grew up in the Pantelimon neighborhood, one of the most conflictive in Bucharest, capital of a country with little aquatic tradition (nine Olympic medals) and trying to wake up after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Since then, his sport has been losing talent and has been swallowed by a black hole. At the Rio (2016) and Tokyo (2021) Games they won four medals. He had to go back to Helsinki, in 1952, to find such a poor figure. Decay yields more data: in Seoul 88, 26 were added, two more than in the last four Games.

But among the thick fog characteristic near the Carpathians, a phenomenon of 1.90m and 2.04m wingspancurrent world champion of 100 and 200 free, already record holder of the 100m (46.86), has become the biggest glow in the country since Nadia Comanecithe perfect gymnast who achieved the historic ten at the Montreal Games (1976) and collected nine Olympic medals (five gold). David Popovici is now a chosen one, a unique case in body and mind, called to mark an era. Naturally, opens the doors of its training center to AS any given day in March.

a country project

The Dinamo pool, located next to the football stadium, is a vestige of those days gone by, of sporting glories and human miseries. The worn paint on the outside, its ‘check point’ to access the complex, its white walls, its blue railings and that concrete skeleton cover an enviable Olympic pool in which there are posters of the swimmer on all sides. The two worlds of Bucharest in the same space, that of Comaneci and that of Popovici, which floats in the water like a duck and flies like a dragonflyescorted by five teammates and numerous children who are part of the project in which his father Mihailo, a former commercial agent, now sports director of the center, has been involved.

Popovici does not fight to be number one, because he already is and can keep it for a decade, but to be an inspiration. “They stop him on the street, they ask for his autographs and photographs. He takes it well. One day, a couple with his son asked him for a photo in a store and the man told him that he had returned to playing sports thanks to him. That is what fills my son”, recounts the father. Seduced by all the American universities, the Romanian swimmer does not move from his paradise, involved not only in his sports career but in promoting swimming in a country devoid of references. Popovici is a matter of state. When he won the two golds at the 2022 Budapest World Cups the government awarded him 200,000 euros and decorated him ‘Knight’ with the ‘Order of the Star of Romania. “Everybody talks about him, he’s very popular,” explains former soccer player Florin Raducioiu, who is also stopped on the street because of his successes.

“This January we have started a long-term project, for the 2032 Games. We want there to be a Romanian swimmer in the final. It is here, among these children -says the father- who splash around, who don’t even know how to float… Who knows”, he added. An example like that of his son, a story as exceptional as it is simple, because as the 19-year-old and world champion says: “There is art in simplicity.”

The formation of a talent

The creation of the phenomenon would not be first understood without Mihailo and Georgetathe parents of the creature, who at the age of four enrolled their son in swimming on medical recommendation. “He was a little taller than the others and with a bit of a tummy”says his father, who admits that at the age of eight he already realized that his son’s mentality was different: “He won a lot, but when he lost he didn’t get upset. He tolerated frustration, he really was like a fish in water.”. In the Aqua Team, a club to which Popovici belonged in his early days, he was not considered too much because he was clueless, lost focus, played with glasses… And they sent him to the second training group, where he met his current coach, Adrian Radulescu. Both started the ideal relationship.

With a degree in Activity and Sports Sciences, Radulescu, passionate about Stoic philosophy, noticed the peculiarities of this child. “He got confused, but when he concentrated he was the fastest. He had to capture his attention, keep him motivated, look for incentives ”, Explain. “My son likes that you explain why one thing or another is done, they want to think,” adds Mihailo. “Adri never scolded him or yelled at him, and we liked that and David also, who was much more interested in everything”, explains the father.

“To develop you need the right parents”, adds his father, attentive to everything, meticulous, tall like his son. “We got up early to prepare breakfast (milk, oatmeal and fruit), we always took him to the training center and we planned vacations in the same place of his competitions to be with him. Swimming is not an expensive sport, nor is it cheap, since there are tournaments and we have always been there with him”. Her mother even took a degree on doping to learn more about the involvement of food and medicine in athletes, while her son found swimming “a fun”. The results came fast.

Early adolescent records

At the age of 13, he already achieved the first Romanian national record in the 50 backstroke; At 14 he was already the fastest European in the 100 free under 15 years and at 16 he achieved the junior world record and went to the Tokyo Olympics, where he finished in seventh position. The experts were hallucinated with his irruption in a test where physicality and strength are rewarded, with warriors like César Cielo (former world record holder), Kyle Chalmers or Caeleb Dressel. Popovici broke all the canons, he was thin, with little muscle, but he had a 49 foot height and innate buoyancy.

“There were guys just as tall, most of them stronger, but he had a knack for applying maximum speed with minimal effort. His buoyancy and speed were unique, which is why he always ended up arriving before”, says Radulescu, who in addition to cultivating his body, introduced him to the universe of philosophy, because Popovici reflects despite his age as a university professor. “At the age of 12 I realized that talent was not everything”, assured the Romanian swimmer to AS.

“I see Popovici as a champion of those who come out very occasionally, just once among many eras. He has an innate sense for fast swimming, totally natural, and he carries within himself, perfectly assumed, the rhythm and cadence of these distances, 100 and 200 free“, Spitz analyzed in June 2022 on NBC when he saw the performance of the world champion. In the past World Cups in Budapest, in June 2022, he achieved the double title, something that the same swimmer had not achieved since Jim Montgomery at the 1973 Belgrade World Cups. And just a month and a half later he broke the record in the 100 free.

The divan and the library of the Romanian

Many glances point to Radulescu as a guru of swimming, as the Bob Bowman who has transformed Popovici’s talent into a swimming machine as the American did in his day with Michael Phelps and now with Leon Marchand. True to his totally holistic way of seeing life, he takes credit for himself with an example that defines him. “I saw an interview with Orson Welles in which he was asked: ‘What made you think you could roll Citizen Kane in such an unorthodox way? And he said: ‘Out of ignorance; It was the first film I made, I didn’t know that things could be done like this; and I had a cinematographer who never said no to me’. David is my cinematographer“.

Radulescu and Popovici manage divine grace hand in hand, the gift that nature has given them, that their parents have lovingly cared for and that has given the swimmer who is called to mark stratospheric speed records. For that very reason, mind care, what can damage the bodies, as has happened to many swimmers who have entered into depressions and who have not known how to manage success, is what worries Radulescu the most. “I recommend books“, it states. “In the end, he is an 18-year-old boy who wants to do the things of that age, like having a car, being with friends, focusing his academic career…“.

“My parents taught me that sport It’s not a game of life and death or good and evil. The difference is in tenths of a second”, reflects the swimmer, who defines himself as a “calm” person who enjoys his life in Bucharest, who has a girlfriend, who goes cycling on Sundays, the only day he has free, and who devours books on philosophy and psychology, which helps him better face competitions… And who is a Liverpool fan. “He has a Japanese mentality. He is always 100 percent focused on everything he does”says the father.

Popovici is so aware of everything he does that even his nickname, at the request of Arena, his sponsor, has a history, as he tells brilliantly. “The dragonfly sums up my ability, my personality and my environment. It is small and harmless, but it flies beautifully and elegantly over the water, leaving its predators behind.. The precision of the Dragonfly routine perfectly describes my training and its delicacy translates into my performance. Finally, their wings are a symbol of freedom, hence the freestyle“. This is the Bucharest dragonfly, a phenomenon in Romania, an atypical swimmer in and out of the water.