As there was no locker room, they had to change behind curtains. For lack of a dedicated building, they first held their training sessions in the community hall of the high school. The high school offers a specific curriculum for young athletes with three or four class hours a day, the rest being devoted to sport, but the sports facilities were in a rather run-down state in post-Ceaușescu Romania. She pursued her studies at the Petrache-Trișcu Sports High School, which later gave her name to one of its alleys. At 13 years old, at the beginning of class VIII, she left her family and moved to Craiova to train at the Junior Olympic Centre for épée with other athletes, much of which were older than her. She was noticed by national coach Dan Podeanu, who after a trial selected her for centralized training. She turned to épée because there was no other left-handed weapon available in the club when she began training.īrânză became champion of Romania for her age group after only six months of training. She did not care much for the idea at first, as she was not a fan of The Three Musketeers, but she was attracted to the sport as soon as she set foot in the fencing hall. When she was ten, her elder brother Marius, who played football for a school team of CSA Steaua București, took her to his club's fencing hall in Ghencea. She first tried tennis because the courts were not far from home, but she left after one year because she was the only left-handed player and because of the lack of competitive events.

A very energetic child, she was pushed by her parents towards sport. īrânză was born in 1984 in the Rahova district of Bucharest, the second of two children.

Ana Maria Popescu, formerly known as Ana Maria Brânză ( Romanian pronunciation:, born 26 November 1984), is a Romanian left-handed épée fencer, 2013 individual European champion, four-time Olympian, 20 individual Olympic silver medalist, and 2016 team Olympic champion.

Retete de post bune