Elisabeta Lipă

Career

Lipă made her debut at the age of 19 at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, where she won her first gold medal in the double sculls event. She won her most recent gold medal in the eight at the Athens Summer Olympics in 2004. She is the only person to win a gold medal in the two premiere rowing events: the single scull and the eight. She is also one of very few women to win a gold medal in both a sculling and a sweep event. (Canada's Kathleen Heddle and Marnie McBean accomplished the same, sculling and sweep gold medals, in 1992 and 1996. Also, Romanians Simona Radis and Ancuta Bodnar, gold in double sculls in Tokyo, 2020, and eight, in Paris 2024.)

In 2004, she became the first female rower and the second rower overall to compete at six Olympics. This was first done by Czechoslovak rower Jiří Pták (cox) in 1992 and equalled in 2008 by Canadian Lesley Thompson (cox), Estonian Jüri Jaanson, and Australian James Tomkins.

Later life In 2008 she was awarded the Thomas Keller Medal at the Rowing World Cup in Lucerne and became an honorary citizen of her native town Siret. From November 2015 to January 2017, she served as the Romanian Minister of Youth and Sport in the Cioloș Cabinet.