Controversies Regarding The Sportsmen Access To National Championships Podium In Romania

More and More Elaborated and Diversified Championships Versus Inefficient Selection of Talented People Able to Outstand Internationally

Over the last decade, sports federations in Romania increased the number of national competitions

due to sports diversification, the emergence of new sports branches, the acknowledgement of national

championships for more age categories (especially for children), as well as due to the implementation of

scarce sports training strategies. These have a positive effect by fostering the motivation of sportsmen and

trainers, but they decrease the performance relevance in spite of the fact that the number of sportsmen

stagnates or decreases. Table 1 and table 2 highlight the report between the number of participant

sportsmen and the number of medals brought into play in national championships (abbreviated RSM), for

sports federations in Romania, which support Olympic sports

Results in Table 1 prove football advancement within society, a sport with professional status,

whose championship has a pyramidal structure of competitions for categories of age or level of training.

Within non-professional team sports, there outstands handball with a high value report, the top being

ended by volleyball, case in which we can resume that a medal is brought into play (a place on the

national podium) for every 2-3 competing teams (a team having approximately 15 members).

In table 2 there can be noticed that in tennis a national medal can be obtained, on average, in a

competition between 11 sportsmen, whereas in the case of sports such as weightlifting and swimming,

each sportsman has ensured, on average, approximately 2 medals! Out of the concrete situations

presented in Tables 1 and 2 , there results that, in the case of some federations (ranged towards the end of

the tops), obtaining national medals is far from being relevant.

Motivation through official medal normally acts as an activator (Quantix Marketing Consulting,

2014)but also creates an access to somehow-not-deserved sports allowances and gratifications, which, in

some cases, has become a scope in itself for some trainers and sportsmen. The Romanian state issued

laws aimed at supporting and compensating the sportive effort, absolutely necessary in a country in which

the rate of absolute poverty is of 24,6% (Eurostat, 2016), and access to performance sport is perceived by

its citizens as being very low (Institutul Român pentru Evaluare și Strategie –IRES, 2016). Therefore,

while the lack of material, financial or logistic resources is often mentioned by top Romanian sportsmen,

a part of these resources is spent undeservedly on sportsmen without real perspectives of becoming

known.

The decrease of the number of sportsmen registered in the competition national system, was also

generated by national politics, which proved its inefficiency over time, recalling in this respect the

phenomenon of ‘multiple legitimation’. By multiple legitimation a larger and larger number of national

sports structures were represented in the internal competition calendar by a smaller and smaller number of

sportsmen. This national innovation, which seems somehow justified by the necessity of increasing

resources, affects, nowadays, the healthy outstanding of sports structures, covers the lack of activity of

many specialists and even favours fraud, through discounting the same services by various structures, for

the same sportsman and the same actions.

Honesty and Fairness of Sports Victory Versus Proved Doping

Nowadays, fraud is more obvious than ever in Romanian society. The show of proving financial,

electoral, intellectual and many other kinds of fraud is a daily, habitual fact in the contemporary

Romanian society. When the society elite defrauds, the consequences in collective culture are easy to

infer. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Romanian sport was also contaminated by this calamity, by

proving doping in sports for which Romania used to hold international respect and esteem.

Doping undermines the principle of open and fair competition, represents a discouraging factor for

practising sports, in general, and exposes the sportsmen to an unjustified stress. This touches significantly

the sports image and seriously affects the sportsmen health (Agentia Nationala Anti-Doping, 2016). This

national organism claims that ’Corruption and proved doping represent a true tragedy for sports and for

sportsmen all over the world’ mentioning the ‘necessity of changing mentalities’ since ‘proved doping

stains irremediably the image of the incriminated nations’.

At the Olympic Games 2016, Romania outstood by the multitude of proved doping cases at sports

in which our country used to excel, such as kayak-canoe, athletism and weightlifting, creating irritation

and frustration among other competitors (Dragomir, 2016). The exclusion from the Olympic competition

in Rio 2016 of the entire Romanian team of kayak-canoe causes hard-to-imagine losses of image,

alongside the irretrievable losses of the sportsmen in question. These may be anytime entitled to accuse

the sports system for generating such a situation. This thing happened in spite of the fact that Romania

assumed the obligation of aligning with the international politics in this field, adopting normative acts

(Legea 227, 2006)and initiating national manifestations such as ‘Clean Sport Day’ ‘No to doping’,

creating competent organisms such as Anti-Doping National Agency – ANAD.

Practicing Performance Sports, Versus Bad Results in Learning

Sports and physical education represent in the European Community’s view essential elements for

carrying out a high quality education, forming at the same time a way of increasing the degree of school

attendance and attractiveness. Through the role it holds in formal and non-formal education, sport

contributes to enriching human capital at a European level. The values sent by sport help to develop

knowledge, motivation, skills and preparation for individual effort. With a view to ensure the

reintegration of professional sportsmen on the labour market at the end of their sports career, the

European Commission highlights the importance of early creating a ‘double career’ for sportsmen by

involving some local training centres of high professionalism, capable of protecting the moral,

educational and professional interests of these young people (Comisia Europenană, 2007).

Sportsmen make constantly a lot of effort, thus reducing their free time. In Romania the effects of

practising sports in diminishing school performance is augmented by the school system which is mostly

based on the student’s additional effort. Thus, sportsmen students in Romania do not usually keep up with

school requirements, because in their free time they practise sport or have a rest after practising it. The

existence of sportsmen students in schools creates, in Romania, more problems than reasons to be proud

of, as it would be normal. While in civilised countries all school units hunt valuable sportsmen, granting

them a series of facilities, in Romania sportsmen students are being ignored or artificially helped to

graduate. The multitude of cases in which Romanian sportsmen students do not succeed in passing the

Baccalaureate examination, testify their low school preparation level. Most of the times this aspect

decisively influences the subsequent level of young sportsmen success in life.

The improvement of these aspects may be done by carrying out stronger connections between

school and sports structures, by identifying some common motives of acknowledging the sportsmen

students value, by increasing the role of school physical education teachers in the sports system and last

but not least, by growing awareness of trainers as far as their own sportsmen learning process is

concerned.

Performance Sportsman – Idol and Model Versus Handicap in Social Integration

In the European community’s view, sport should have an important contribution to economic and

social cohesion, as well as in forming better integrated societies, and all UE inhabitants shall have access

to sport (Comisia Europenană, 2007). The European trend shows that sport is a dynamic sector, with a

rapid development and an underestimated macro-economic impact.

Because of the Romanian society’s lateness in growing old in comparison to some European

countries, the sportsmen status may seem to be declining in our contemporary society. In Romania there

are many parents who advise their children to study more to the detriment of physical activities and there

is a great lack of interest for PE classes (Quantix Marketing Consulting, 2014). Although, in general,

sport has positive associations in the society, there are also cases in which the pride of being a sportsman

has begun to become a complex. In a society which does not have a sufficiently developed sports culture,

the performance sportsman is rather perceived as a victim than as a winner, idol or model, reason for

which s/he is neither envied nor copied. The sportsman tends to be seen by his fellows as an unavailable

individual (because he is usually at his/her training sessions), he/she socialises with greater difficulty,

he/she lacks certain cultural elements, he/she develops quite few opportunities of having a fulfilled life

and this is probably why, at present, children are in general encouraged to practise swimming for pleasure

and not for performance (Quantix Marketing Consulting. 2014).

These aspects of collective perception could be drastically increased when the society members

will practice sports to a greater extent. Direct implication in sport, and we mean practising it, fosters a

deeper understanding,be it by own experiences or by the opinions of those with whom the citizen

interacts. Alongside with the increase of the civilisation level in the society, poeple shall understand the

profound implications which sports may have in their lives over health, fostering passions, fulfiling

ideals, overcoming self limits, having a harmonious life style and, thus, probably they shall value in a

superior way the performance sportsman