Ana Maria Popescu

Challenge International de Saint-Maur 2013

Ana Maria Florentina Popescu , b. Brânză, (born November 26, 1984 in Bucharest ) is a Romanian sword fencer , Olympic gold medalist and two-time world champion.

Ana Maria Brânză was third in the individual competition at the World Championships in Lisbon in 2002 and thus achieved her best result in international competitions for a long time. At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens , she reached the round of 16 and finished 16th. At the World Championships in Leipzig in 2005, Brânză reached the quarter-finals and was sixth at the end. A year later she was fifth at the World Cup in Turin and was also fourth with the team with which she was then European team champion in Izmir . The 2007 World Cup did not go well for the Romanian. In St. Petersburg she only reached 21st place in the singles, with the relay she was tenth.

Brânză found his way back to success in 2008. In Kiev she won the silver medal at the European Championships and was European champion with the team. The successes continued at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing . After victories over Megumi Harada , Ljubow Schutowa and the later bronze medalist Ildikó Mincza-Nébald, she was only defeated in the final of the Germans Britta Heidemann with 11-15. At the end of the season she was a World Cup winner.

Popescu (right), with the Romanian Vice World Champion team 2015

In 2009 she was team European champion in Plovdiv , 2010 in Paris team world champion . In 2011 she won bronze in singles and gold with the team at the European Championships in Sheffield and also at the World Championships in Catania . In 2012 it was silver with the team at the European Championships in Legnano . At the Olympic Games in London she was eliminated with the team against the later silver medalists from South Korea and reached sixth place, in the individual she lost to the later winner Jana Schemjakina and reached eleventh place. In 2013 she became individual European champion in Zagreb and won silver with the team, at the World Championships in Budapest she took bronze with the team. In 2014 she won the European Championship with the team in Strasbourg .

In 2015 Brânză won the European Championship with the team and took silver at the World Championship in Moscow . In August she married Pavel Popescu. At the European Championships in 2016 , she won silver in the individual and bronze with the team. At the 2016 Olympic Games , Popescu was Olympic champion with the Romanian epee team.

Web links

Commons : Ana Maria Brânză  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Ana Maria Popescu - Rankings and Results in the database of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime (English / French)
• Ana Brânză in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Biography - Ana Maria Popescu in the database of ophardt-team.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Portrait on the IOC website ( Memento from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Ana Maria Brânză sa căsătorit la Castelul Cantacuzino. In: click.ro. Retrieved August 12, 2016 (Romanian).