Gabriela Szabo

My hero is Gabriela Szabo. Gabriela Szabo has been a great athlete from Romania. She was born in Bistrita, a town near the city where I live, Dej, on 14 November 1975. She became well known to the world by accident. In 1988, when Gabi was in sixth grade, her class master, who was also a teacher of physical education, sent her to participate in a cross school. Student Gabriela Szabo won her first race of 600 meters in the downtown park in Bistrita. With the help of her parents, she began to train for athletics.

From 1991 until 2002 athlete Gabriela Szabo was brilliant in all competitions in which she participated. During her career, she has won 21 gold medals and 12 silver and is one of the first athletes in the world to win all the titles of the Absolute European championships, world or Olympics.

She was awarded gold at the Olympic Games in 2000 in the 5000 meters and the bronze and silver respectively in the 1500 meters at the Olympic Games in 1996 and 2000. She is also a three time world champion.

In 2004, after a competition in Birmingham, where she dropped out, Gabriela decided to retire. Today Gabriela Szabo is vice president of the Romanian Athletics Federation and studying at the Masters level in anthropology at ANEFS Bucharest. I miss seeing Gabriela run but now the competition is part of her life every day, for she wanted to know more and do more.

I admire Gabriela Szabo very much because it is very brave and ambitious. Though raised in a family of simple workers, she managed to become a great athlete because of its merits. Although it was only in sixth grade she was able to give up her free time to train and perform in athletics. All Romanians should be proud of this because it was a great athlete who represented Romania in various competitions and won numerous medals.