Translated from Prosport:

Right after she was 18 years old, Cerasela Patrascu gave up gymnastics and remained at Deva in order to finish high school. The story of Cerasela isn’t about gold, about the medals and the podiums won along the 11 years and 8 months in which she practiced gymnastics, but its a story of a broken dream, about the fight of a talented gymnast who wanted to reach the top after a serious injury, to win, after 2 years, the fight with herself and then to put the final full stop. A retirement which very few understood, moreover with which she helped the team at the 2010 world championships on 3 apparatus: beam, vault and uneven bars.

In the first hours of the morning, the city of Deva gets lost under the thick fog which stretches for far and beyond. The first shy rays of the January sun shine, from spot to spot, on the red roofs which align nicely, patted by the thin smoke, which come out of the horns. From here, up above, from the old town, everything seems smaller and much organized, as if everything found its perfect use in a world just awakened, on a Sunday morning.”That’s where our home was with the gymnastics training centre, where you can see the tower is the city centre and that’s about all we can see right now”- Cerasela, taking her role as a host seriously.

I was born talent and died hope

She is sitting on the wall of the old town and concentrated, she glares somewhere, below, at the bottom of the hill. “We didn’t used to come up here very often, we use to deal more with the stairs below, near the old town..how we used to climb them and then go down”, she laughs.

“Don’t you regret retiring from gymnastics? You could have still done more…”

“No, not one moment. There were many health problems, I decided it was enough. Furthermore, I want to do something else as well”, she tells us. Cerasela Patrascu was considered one of the most talented gymnasts of her generation. An uneven bars specialist, with an extraordinary flexibility, the girl born in Bals was raising everyone’s hopes. “I wanted to be known, I wanted the anthem to sing for me, to be the best. I wished I would have done more for myself too. Everybody said ‘you can, you can!’ But if I could, why didn’t I succeed? I was born talent and I died hope”, she teaches us a harsh lesson about reality. Behind the words, the sorrow can be seen, while her big brown eyes, are starting to get tearful.

A wonderful child’s life

Thousands of hours of training, hopes and dreams, all brought to an end in one single second. A wrong landing on the uneven bars, at the European Championships in Clermont-Ferrand, and both knees seriously injured. A decisive moment for the girl who dreamed of becoming a new Nadia.

“5th of April, 2008, at 5pm. The moment when everything ended for me, the only disappointed which I lived in the gymnastics world. Then there was a lock put in my life for which I never found the key, because I gave up physically too. Wishes, dreams, everything gone, I got to the point that I had nightmares about that moment”, she explains, thinking, while she runs her hand over the cold wall of the old town. Almost an unconscious sign, worn with oneself from training, when, with a move as easy as this one, she put her sings on the beam of only 10cm.

“I am not happy with what I have accomplished in gymnastics, because I know I could have done more. My dream was a medal on the uneven bars and to go to the Olympic Games. I, however, don’t have any regrets that my parents took me to gymnastics. I don’t miss anything, I had the best life a child could ever have”

“At least I can do something for others”

Two years from that accident she fought with herself, with weight problems, two years where she fought at every training session and she returned last year, at the World Championships, where she helped the team on the uneven bars, beam and vault. Nothing however was the same as before: “The last two years were a nightmare, because they were full of injuries and failures. I started asking myself why is this only happening to me. I recover from one problem, only to go into another one” Cerasela talks clearly about what she calls ‘her past’, and any comeback to the present brings her joy which she overcomes with difficulty. “From now on I will still think about gymnastics, I did it for so many years, I am going to go ahead with it. I want to be a coach. If for me I couldn’t do it, at least I can do something for others”, she smiles. Cerasela gives a hand to a group of 13, 14 and 15 year olds, but also a second grade group, helping the little ones to execute correctly the moves indicated by the coaches. “Is Cera a good coach?! “Too good!”, she laughs.

The sacrifices were worth it

Her life from now doesn’t differ much from the one before. She still lives at Deva, in the same room, she daily enters the room which she trained in for almost 10 years: “Everyone said that the outside world is like a jungle, but I don’t think so, you must leave some space for good everywhere you go. Its not the life from the training centre, where you thought that everything pleased you, it was enough only to wish for something, but you can handle yourself here as well.” The dreams, however, have changed. As well as her thinking. “Now that I have retired from gymnastics and I see the things from outside, I think all those thousands of hours of practice were worth it, but when I was on the team I said that they weren’t worth it, that its too much work. I don’t have any bad thoughts, because gymnastics made me what I am today”, she explains. A forgiveness with oneself and to continue a dream, which will be lived through others. Through her own pupils.

Down, at the bottom of the hills, Deva has woken up. The fog has lifted and Cerasela shows us, one by one, buildings and streets. Like a teacher.

Cerasela openly talks to us about success and failure, about the gymnastics lived through a handful of medals and about the maturity lessons which life has taught her.

Isn’t it fustrating to not have any individual medal?

No, because I realized through the time that I was a team player. I was very good at one, actually 2 apparatus and it was quite difficult to get individual medals.

Do you take this as a failure?

I took it as reality. That’s all I could do, that’s all I did. The world says that you shouldn’t be happy with less, but I guess it was meant to be.

Do you have a regret when it comes to gymnastics?

That I tried to hold the landing at the Europeans in 2008. In practice I just couldn’t get it, and I tried to do it well during competition, to help the team and to win.

It was when you didn’t want to get on the podium…

I felt guilty that I couldn’t help the team, I couldn’t do more. If I wouldn’t have fallen, it would have been better, I would have had the second highest score in qualification on the uneven bars, so I would have gotten into the event finals.

Why was the team so important?

Because I didn’t have any chances to an individual medal and I was relying on the team. I knew that for the team I could have done more than for myself.

How would you describe your gymnastics career in three worlds?

Disappointment, satisfaction, appreciation.

What have you learned since you retired?

To be more realistic, to pay more attention to those around me. I think I matured quite a lot since I retired.

In the small town of Stefanesti, the sports arena will be named, from spring, after Cerasela Patrascu

The seperation from my dad hurts me

Cerasela confesses that she loves her parents and sister, but she never showed them this. In all the harsh moments, Cerasela found love in her family, but also in the coaches with who she worked with. She confesses that her parents and her older sister are the most important things for her, the ‘engine’ which always pushed her ahead. “I love them so much, but I never showed them this. I am so happy that I have a family that understands me and they let me do whatever pleases me, to make my own decisions, and that they support me”, she explains.

She suddenly stops. Her eyes are full of tears and for a few minutes its as if she is trying to find her words. “In the last two years I became further apart from my dad, who is at work in Italy. I would like to tell him I’m sorry, because he loves me more than anything and I never appreciated this. I wish from all my heart for everything to be as it was before, she sighs.

Source

Claudiu