Eugenia Golea

Eugenia Golea
Golea in the 1980s
Personal information
Country represented	Romania
Born	(1971-03-10) 10 March 1971 Bucharest, Romania
Height	159 cm (5 ft 3 in)
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Years on national team	1984–88 (ROM)
Head coach(es)	Adrian Goreac Maria Cosma Octavian Bellu Adrian Stan
Former coach(es)	Mihai Demetrescu Lucia Marcu
Medal record Olympic Games 1988 Seoul Team competition World Championships 1987 Rotterdam Team competition 1985 Montreal Team competition 1987 Rotterdam Vault European Championships 1987 Moscow Beam 1987 Moscow Vault

Eugenia Golea (born 10 March 1971) is a retired Romanian artistic gymnast, who competed in international events between 1984 and 1988. She is known for scoring a perfect 10 for the vault optional in the team competition of the 1987 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and for being the first gymnast to compete two consecutive layout stepout jumps. She helped her team to win an Olympic silver medal, a world title and a world silver medal. She liked all the events equally, though she excelled in vaulting and floor. On vault she won a world silver medal and a continental bronze and on beam she won a continental silver medal.

Career

Golea began training at School Club N 2 in Bucharest under the coaching of Lucia Marcu and Mihai Demetrescu. Later she joined the national team at Deva where she trained with Adrian Gorean, Adrian Stan and Maria Cosma. Her debut as a senior in an international event was in 1984. Although she had an excellent showing at the 1984 Balkan Championships where she placed first with the team and third all-around she was left off the 1984 Olympic team.

In 1985 she was a member of the silver winning team at the World Championships in Montreal. In 1987, together with Aurelia Dobre, Camelia Voinea, Celestina Popa, Daniela Silivaș and Ecaterina Szabo, Golea was a member of the gold medal winning team at the 1987 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands. During the vault optional in the team finals both Aurelia Dobre and Golea scored perfect tens from the judges, Golea being one of three women (along with Elena Shushunova and Svetlana Baitova) to debut the double twisting yurchenko at the World Championships that year. Individually she won the silver medal on vault behind Elena Shushunova. She added two more individual medals at the 1987 European Championships in Moscow, a silver on beam and a bronze on vault. After winning silver with the team at the 1988 Summer Olympics, Golea retired.

Post retirement

After retiring she joined her brother in an acrobatic circus act. In 1991 she moved to Puerto Rico. There, she worked for a circus and helped coach the Puerto Rican gymnastics team. Golea eventually moved to the United States to work as a gymnastic coach and choreographer. She coached at American Gymnastics in Bedford Hills, New York and YWCA in White Plains, New York.