Today, 26 September, Dan Grecu celebrates his birthday. We would like to wish him from all our hearts a Happy Birthday, good health and strength in his new position as a head-coach of Romania’s two national MAG teams. We also wish to thank him for the valuable results he obtained for Romania, both as a gymnast and a coach.

Below you can find a few of the achievements throughout Dan Grecu’s career as a gymnast:

-national champion, multiple Balcan champion between 1972-1980

-European Championship in France – Grenoble (1973): silver medal in rings, obtaining the first medal ever at a renowned international competition in the history of Romanian MAG

-World Championship in Bulgaria – Varna (1974): gold medal in rings (first gold medal ever in Romanian gymnastics, both feminine and masculine)

-World Championship in Switzerland – Berna (1975): gold medal in rings

-World Championship in France – Strasbourg (1978): bronze medal in rings

-World Championship in US – Forth Worth (1979): silver medal in rings

Olympic Games

-1972 (Munchen): 7th place in the team final (Dan Grecu, Petre Mihaiuc, Gheorghe Paunescu, Mircea Gheorghiu, Nicolae Oprescu and Constantin Petrescu)

– 1976 (Montreal): bronze medal on rings (first olympic medal in the history of Romanian MAG); 6th place in the team final ( Dan Grecu, Ion Cheiches, Nicolae Oprescu, Sorin Cepoi, Mihai Bors and Stefan Gal – current second coach of the team); 4th place on vault

– 1980 (Moscow): 6th place on rings (couldn’t participate in the finals due to a broken biceps); 4th place in the team final (Dan Grecu, Kurt Szilier, Aurelian Georgescu, Sorin Cepoi, Nicolae Oprescu and Romulus Bucuroiu)

As a coach of the MAG team (1984-2008), Dan Grecu had a decisive contribution in obtaining many European, World and Olympic medals. Undoubtedly, the most valuable of all was the bronze medal in the team competition during the Olympic Games in Athens. This was the first Olympic medal ever obtained by the Romanian MAG team.This success crowned the teams’ other achievements in the same year, namely 5 out of 8 possible gold medals at the European Championship in Lausanne.

Numerous gymnasts, among whom the highly praised Dan Burinca, Marius Gherman, Marius Urzica, Ioan Suciu, Dan Potra, Marian Dragulescu, were  gymnasts trained by this extraordinary  coach (and by the other members of the team coordinated by him).

Unfortunately, there isn’t much information available on Dan Grecu, but for the ones that want to learn more about him, we recommend the following articles (in Romanian):

“Dan Grecu: About myself” (source: dangrecu.ro)

“I liked somersaults since my early youth” (source: Jurnal National)

“His muscles betrayed him” (source: Libertatea)

“Beijing could be the last Olympics for Dan Grecu” (source: Adevarul)

“Dan Grecu, coordonator of the MAG teams” (source: Mediafax)

“Dan Grecu quits the Olympic national team” (source: Prosport)

Unfortunatelly we could not find any videos with Dan Grecu, especially ones showing his fantastic performances on rings…

Ioanavol and Mikeyy

(with many thanks to Stella for the help)