- Loredan Popa
Loredan Popa, born 1980 in
Hunedoara , is a Romanian flatwater canoer and former world and European champion in the Canadian canoe C-4 500m event.His first international title came in 2000 when he was a member of the Romania crew which won the C-4 1000m gold medal at the European under-23 championship in Boulogne, France. Two years later in
Zagreb , Croatia he doubled up, winning gold medals in both the C-4 500m and 1000m. In the C-2 final in Zagreb he partnered his brother Constantin and took the bronze medal.He then moved from his hometown club of
Constructorul Hunedoara to Romania's premier clubDinamo Bucharest .Romania has great strength in depth in the Canadian canoe events and Popa had to wait until 2005 to be selected to represent his country at a major senior championship. In
Poznań , Poland, he became European champion at the first attempt as a member of the C-4 500m crew, along withFlorin Popescu ,Silviu Simioncencu andIosif Chirilă . He also competed in the C-4 1000m race, winning a bronze medal.A month later, in August 2005, the same crew went on to win the World Championship C-4 500m title. Popa was the only man to be selected to race over all three C-4 distances. In the 1000m event won a silver medal as the Romanians were just edged out by Poland in a tight finish. In the 200m he again reached the final, finishing sixth.
In 2006, Popa won his second consecutive European C-4 500m title at
Račice , Czech Republic. At the world championship in Szeged, however, the Romanian four were unable to repeat their 2005 success. Popa again competed over all three distances but had to settle for a single bronze medal (C4 500m).
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