The rector of the University of Bucharest, Marian Preda, announced on Thursday, August 1, on Facebook that the higher education institution will build a swimming pool, “even if the public authorities will continue to remain indifferent”.
The University of Bucharest will build a swimming pool. Photo: inquam photos george calin
Rector Marian Preda’s statement was made after the young David Popovici spoke, in an interview for TVR, about the infrastructure available to other athletes from other countries.
“I wouldn’t say (that I am) a miracle. But, in the conditions in which we surpassed the British, the Americans, by 200, for example, the Australians, who have infinitely better conditions than ours. They have pools to put in their heads too! They have all the infrastructure they need. They have absolutely everything… training centers upon training centers, so in these conditions I train on Lia Manoliu, in the same pool where I learned to swim at the age of four, that’s why I’m so tanned with traces of glasses, because swim there in the open air”said David Popovici, who won gold in the 200m freestyle and bronze in the 100m freestyle at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“Even universities don’t have swimming pools”
Although “Romania has “miraculous” economic growth, it has European funds for investments”, but “he has no money for sports because he allocates it unfairly and inefficiently for special pensions, for any wage increases demanded by the unions, to cover the huge salaries and losses at the autonomous regs and from inefficient state companies like Tarom“, emphasized Marian Preda in the post made on Facebook.
“Several football stadiums, the Otopeni swimming complex and several swimming pools around the country were built. Then investments in sports facilities stopped. Instead of some of the hundreds of gymnasiums built in the past in rural areas and largely unused and sloping sports fields, investments with a greater impact could be made where there are many children and young people, in large cities, in large university centers.
In Bucharest, the capital of Romania that produces a quarter of the GDP, not even the universities (with the exception of Medicine) have swimming pools“, added the rector of the University of Bucharest.
“We, at the University of Bucharest, have for over 10 years a project to build a swimming pool in Grozăvești, instead of the parking lot in front of the dormitories; I’ve submitted it for funding since then and it’s been on the waiting list for 10 years; we were told that there are still swimming pools in Bucharest (where??!) so they must be built in the country as well (well, local and regional political interests!). Because no funding was found for 10 years, we withdrew and redid the project and now we have it 100% ready again, with all the necessary approvals to be submitted again for funding. It costs 6 million euros. The amount will probably decrease after the auction. Is much? Do the 33,000 students who have compulsory sports lessons, the hundreds of national champions in various sports and the 4 special UB scholarship holders who are medalists in European, world or Olympic swimming competitions (including David) deserve such a pool?“, the rector’s message also states.
“This is the only way we can reward the exceptionality of David Popovici”
Marian Preda also added that “David Popovici will resume classes at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Bucharest in the fall. The entire UB community, students and teachers, are waiting for him at home with admiration, love, gratitude, pride, but also with great responsibility.
You can’t have the university where an exceptional Olympic swimming champion studies without a swimming pool.
We will build that pool even if the public authorities remain indifferent to our requests. If the public institutions will not support us, we will assume the costs of the construction. It will not be easy, but we will save in other chapters, attract sponsorships and enter normality with the University’s own forces.
This is the only way we can reward David Popovici’s exceptionality, deserve our association with him and continue to give reasons to David and other performers in sports or in research to stay at home, in Romania and inspire other young people to do the same“.
