Romania's Mihai Cristian Tentea, who finished 5th in the bobsleigh 2-man race at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, together with George Iordache, said on Wednesday that placing 5th was a huge performance that exceeded their own expectations.
"It's hard to describe what I felt yesterday. It was like a miracle, it was an unexpected result, we exceeded our own expectations that we had before starting the race. It is a huge performance that we feel and the more time passes, the more important this result seems," said Tentea.
He added that the absence of a bobsleigh track in Romania influenced his level of training, but that he could not say if the result would have been better if he had trained in Romania.
"Of course, if we had a bobsleigh track in Romania, we would have had higher expectations, but the final result I don't know how much different it would have been, given our current level. But I think that had we had a track maybe our level would have been higher. But we have nowhere to know, because that's all we have for now. And with what we have now, we have managed to excel in a very beautiful way. We managed to show the world that you don't necessarily need to have a track, but you really want to perform when it matters most. We focused on the things that matter and that was the most important thing," said the Romanian bobsledder.
"In the pre-Olympic year, we were very much supported by the Romanian Olympic Committee, we received a new four-person bobsleigh and a few pairs of skates, which helped us a lot, helped us have an equal chance with the other stronger teams. They helped us have options in choosing skates. I had the opportunity to have an equal chance with the others," he added.
Tentea also said that he felt flattered by the congratulations received from the President of Romania, Nicusor Dan.
"It's really flattering for the president to call you, it feels in a strange way. We are not used to receiving so much attention. Every message from people we don't know is flattering, indeed, it feels different, it feels like we finally have a performance in the true sense of the word and we hope that from now on it will be better and better," Tentea said.
His bobsleigh teammate, George Iordache, says that the last heat of the competition was the best of the Romanian crew.
"In my opinion, the last leg was the best. I probably had a lot of emotions and everything feels different. It's not that simple at the back, you need a lot of training, you need a lot of descents, a lot of synchronisation at the start. But we can be proud of this result," Iordache said.
He believes that the atmosphere inside the team is very important in the competition.
"The atmosphere inside the team is very important, that is the secret in a united and well-tuned team. The results will always come," Iordache said.
Bobsledders Mihai Cristian Tentea and George Iordache on Tuesday achieved Romania's best result at the Winter Olympics in the last 34 years, the 5th place in the bobsleigh 2-man event at Milan-Cortina.
Tentea and Iordache kept their place on Monday, after the first two heats, but they could have hoped for more if not for their coming in tenth in heat one.
The Romanians clocked in at 3:42.37, the best Romanian result at the Winter Olympics after 1992 (Albertville), when Ioan Apostol and Liviu Cepoi came in 4th in the bobsleigh 2-man event. Tentea and Iordache surpassed the sixth place of the same two bobsledders in 1994 in Lillehammer.
Tentea and Iordache's performance is Romania's second-best performance in bobsleigh after the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo.
Romania's only medal at the Winter Olympics was a bronze won in the bobsleigh 2-man race by Ion Panturu and Nicolae Neagoe in the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble.
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