PARIS – By any measure, landlocked Moldova, on the northeastern corner of the Balkans, is one of the poorest countries in Europe. Bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south, Moldova has been buffeted by an array of crises made all the more challenging in the past two years by the war nearby.
Over the past 30 or so years, roughly half the people who once called Modolva home – they’re gone. This exodus, this demographic decline, is so profound the situation is potentially, as a nation, existential. When it gained independence amid the end of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the population of Moldova was more than 4 million. Currently: 2.5 million, and dropping.
Before these Paris Games, Moldova had won a total – since its first appearance, in Atlanta in 1996, as an independent entity – of six medals.
Now, already, here two.
Both in judo. Both bronze.
The president of Moldova’s judo federation, Andrei Golban, giving bronze medalist Denis Vieru a spray of celebratory champagne // photo courtesy NOC Moldova
These two medals come as the national Olympic committee, under the direction of secretary general Cristina Vasilianov, has only this year undertaken a thorough re-do – sparked by funding from what the International Olympic Committee calls its “Solidarity” program, designed to help developing nations around the world.
The fact, as Vasilianov says time and again – who knows Moldova?
Maybe now – way more people.
As the saying goes, fortune favors the bold.
And Vasilianov is one of those people who has to make not a lot go the longest way it possibly can.
“At least now they know where is this country,” she said Wednesday, speaking in a little café outside the Olympic village.
“They know in difficult conditions, nevertheless, we can bring medals.”
Cristina Vasilianov, secretary general of the Moldova national Olympic committee // photo courtesy NOC Moldova
The national Olympic committee of Moldova has roughly a dozen full-time staffers. Its annual budget is roughly $1 million. IOC funds are essential to keep the lights on.
In Moldova, there is no real sports stadium. Only about a year ago did it get an Olympic-size 50-meter swimming pool.
When, after Tatiana Salcuțan won a gold medal in the girls’ 200-meter backstroke event at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, a wry joke made its way around the Moldova Olympic Committee – we have a medal, why do we need a pool?!
Salcuțan swims Friday in the rounds of the women’s 200-meter backstroke. Three years ago, at the Tokyo Games, she finished 11th in that event, 28th in the 100-meter backstroke.
Because Moldova is a former Soviet client state, some number of those on staff, now maybe in their 70s, have considerable relationships within the state and around Europe. At the same time, the advance of technology – even something that for many is by now a common feature of everyday life, say, email – has not always been welcomed. There are, you know, routines. Papers.
Vasilianov, a former fencer who has been directing things there for 15 years, decided to mesh tradition with the computer age.
The IOC funding brought internal accounting into the digital age. As she has said, the organization jumped from the 19th to the 21st century. Then came a new national Olympic committee logo and a new ad campaign, focused on individual athletes. The Olympic committee signed a new sponsor, a bank, and looks to sign more.
The Moldova delegation here in Paris is the biggest since Vasilianov took over, 26 athletes in 10 sports. Judo, wrestling, canoe and more, she said.
“We qualified for the first time in table tennis, also,” she said.
The hardest thing in sports, in business, in life is putting in the work – and then hoping it’s the right path.
Correction.
Trusting that you and the team you’re with are on the right path.
Because who else – except for a scant few people in Moldova – were paying attention to what was going on in Moldova?
Why would anyone else have reason to believe that Moldova, which had never before – never – won an Olympic medal in judo rise up? Here? In Paris?
In men’s under-66, 28-year-old Denis Vieru had won the European championships last November and taken third at the very difficult Tokyo Grand Slam in December.
Here, with the crowd at Arena Champs de Mars roaring for his opponent, he defeated France’s Walide Khyar for bronze.
“I am happy and proud,” Vieru said Wednesday. “For myself, for my country, for the people who are with me, who have always supported me and still given me the drive to aim higher and greater.”
Asked if he understood the significance of his medal, Moldova’s first in the sport, he said, yes:
“It’s an honor. A special moment for my soul.
“I always wanted this,” he said, adding in reference to his nation, “I had a strong faith for her.”
What came the next day, after Vieru, is what happens when things are going your way.
When destiny says, Moldova.
Or, back to the real world, in Vasilianov's words, “We are doing miracles. With such a low budget.”
In men’s under-73, 24-year-old Adil Osmanov won bronze, defeating Italy’s Manuel Lombardo.
Understand that Osmanov was fighting with a bum shoulder. It had been dislocated before the Games. So, all his fights here – he made it through, hurt.
Judo bronze medalist Odil Asmanov flanked by coach Dorin Gotonoaga and head coach Valeriu Duminica // photo courtesy NOC Moldova
The way judo works is that it’s a one-day deal per class – under-66 goes one day, under-73 the next. The night before he went, Osmanov said Wednesday, he had fever dreams – willing himself to have the strength to step onto the tatami.
When he stepped onto the podium to get his medal, he said, he had but one thought – dad, we did it.
Not I did it.
We did it.
If we are being honest here, they did it:
He, his dad and, to their credit, the Moldova judo federation. None of this happens without the people backstage. They, too, believed.
For Moldova, there is more here, at the Paris Games, to come.
“We still have hopes,” Vasilianov said. “When I was thinking about medals, I said after the first, ‘Oh, god, thank you for one medal!’
“Two – that would be something absolutely crazy!
“We are all happy. Really happy. I really hope this will change the trajectory of the development of sport in my country.”
And this, because the Olympics, always, are about hopes and dreams.
After six medals in roughly 30 years, to then win two in two days? Two!!
This shows nothing less that there can be hope for Moldova. And real reason, Cristina Vasilianov said, to call the dreamers back.
Back home. To a changing country.
“It gives us hope that after half the population left the country – it will come back,” she said.
“Because they left the poorest country in Europe and they see that nevertheless, it’s possible to rise — this country. I hope that these results, these medals, will also bring our people back.
“This is my dream.”