Ion Drîmbă

Ionel Alexandru "Ion" Drîmbă (also Drâmbă; March 18, 1942 – February 20, 2006) was a Romanian fencer. He competed at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympics and won the first ever Olympic gold medal in fencing for Romania in 1968.

Biography

Drîmbă was born in 1942 in Timișoara, in a working-class family. His father worked at the post office. He took up fencing aged 8 at the local club "Flacăra roșie" following his elder brother and quickly showed talent: he competed with seniors from the age of 13 both in foil and sabre and joined the national foil team at age 16. In 1959, he won the junior national championships in both weapons. and won a silver medal in foil and reached the semi-finals in sabre at the Junior European Championships in Luxembourg. He also became European champion in 1968 and 1969. He was named the best foilist in the world by the International Sports Press Association (AIPS). The Romanian Government however failed to deliver the promised car and gave out only half the monetary reward it had initially announced. He trained amongst other German champions Matthias Behr and Alexander Pusch. Disappointed, he went back to Brazil, where he died in 2006.

Awards Sport Merit, First Class Honored Sports Master ("Maestru emerit al sportului")