Horia Ghibuţiu: "In the new millennium, globalisation, a patriot means to live in America and to serve Romania through a victory obtained in China."
In two hours, 26 minutes and 44 seconds, the marathoner Constantina Tomescu-Diţă constructed a success that can compete, at world notoriety, with another work of art of a famous man from Gorj, Brancusi's Bird in space.
The female race of 42.195 km from the Olympics in Beijing will remain in the history of sport as a new Olympic milestone, visible even on the Moon, like the Great Chinese Wall. Firstly because Puşa, how she is called by her close ones, is 38 years old. When you are the eldest marathon winner in the history of the Olympics and the mother of a 13 years old child - probably the real age of the Chinese gymnasts who climbed on the podium at this Olympics - you win, without opposition, the bet with any prejudice related to the best time in which performance can be done. The victory of the Romanian Constantina Tomescu-Diţă is also a glove thrown to one of the most brave sportive of our time, British Paula Radcliffe, who started on yesterday, to think at the participation in the marathon at the London Olympics in 2012, when she will be 39 years old.
In the three color flag waved yesterday by Puşa Tomescu, in front of 70,000 spectators gathered in the stadium from Beijing only to see finish of the female marathon, we can see a modern lesson of patriotism, however cleared by its senses would be this word today. In the new millennium, globalisation, a patriot means to live in America and to serve Romania through a victory obtained in China. Patriotism can be defined as a race with yourself and with human limits, for over 42 kilometers, at the end of which the entire planet to be given news about your country. And also as an evidence that you care at the place from where you are coming from is the superb challenge launched by our golden marathoner: it has forced the world press to mention Romania in a weekend in which the American swimmer Michael Phelps completed the eighth wonder of the world, becoming the greatest Olympian in history, and the tall Jamaican Usain Bolt became the quickest man on earth, destroying the record at 100 meters flat.
Constantina Tomescu-Diţă will not boost the gross domestic product of Romania, nor will shorten the time lost by the co-nationals left on holiday on the capital-coast route. Instead, it could be that at least one of the 90,000 spectators who attended the yesterday's Award for female marathon from Beijing to want to know more about Romania after he returned home. Or as some fresh parents in the country to name their little girls Constantina, as it happened with the new born baptized after Nadia after the first 10 at the Montreal Olympic Games. And to resolve the problem of traffic in Bucharest, even for a morning, holding a marathon that can rival to the one held in Chicago and won by Puşa in 2004.
It is certain that we should be grateful to our gold medal winners - the yesterday triumph of the gymnast Sandra Izbaşa is not less substantial than the gold from marathon - and we could do this by not building any statue, but by reminding to make sport from time to time.
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