Vlad Stancu (19 years old) was part of the Romanian delegation at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer. Unfortunately, our swimmer was terribly unlucky.
Vlad Stancu. PHOTO: Facebook
After a titanic work, for many years, to catch the Olympic Games, Stancu fell ill with COVID-19. And he missed the final of the 800 meters free, as Adevărul wrote here. Fortunately, Vlad Stancu managed to overcome this huge disappointment. Which is not exactly surprising, given that the 19-year-old swimmer puts a lot of value on mental preparation, and this helped him to pass more easily for the episode in Paris.
Present at the Business Philosophy podcast, produced by journalist Romeo Chiriac, Vlad Stancu spoke about the sport that propelled him to the 2024 Olympic Games.
What did Vlad Stancu say at Business Philosophy?
*There are a lot of swimming injuries. As we float, our joints are very weak. He is a miser who you can break very easily. You can get sprains and other injuries very easily. There are many who have injuries to their shoulders, knees, elbows. God protect me from injuries.
*I want to become the best version of me. And I work for it. We also had training on December 24 and 31, Easter. I don’t regret it.
*Before the competition, I listen to music to calm me down, to put me in a certain state. I try to distance myself from stressful thoughts. When I’m very focused when I enter the test in the water I don’t hear anything anymore.
*I think I’ve broken two David Popovic national records over the years, nothing compared to what he was able to do. I think when I was 15 I broke his 400m crawl record in Gyor. And another at 200 m in the short course, at 16, in Kazan. In total, I broke 25 national records. The first was at the age of 14, in the 800m freestyle, in Pitesti, in December 2019. Then, in Gyor, I broke the records at 1500m, at the age of 14, at the age of 15 and at the age of 16. Incredible feeling!
