Three-time Olympic gold medalist Catalina Ponor is still hoping to return to competition despite a congenital heart defect that required surgery last week.
Ponor, 23, was in the middle of practice several days ago when she felt her heart rate increase dramatically. She was taken to Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest, where doctors performed surgery. Ponor refused to describe the exact procedure to the Libertatea newspaper, saying only, "I do not want to alarm anyone. I can only say that I had a minor problem that was solved."
"It was not anything dramatic," she added, noting that she was only under partial anesthesia.
Ponor, who won three golds (team, beam and floor) at the 2004 Athens Olympics, said there was "no question" that she would discontinue her comeback. She told journalists she began working out in the hospital gym the day after her surgery.
Mariana Bitang, who along with Octavian Belu oversees the national team, told the press that she was aware that Ponor had a "congenital heart malformation" that causes tachycardia, the clinical term for a fast heartbeat. Bitang said she was aware of Ponor's condition in 2004, and doctors never suggested that she restrict her exercises.
Ponor is attaempting to make her second comeback to elite gymnastics. After initially retiring in 2006, she began training the next year and was a standout for the struggling Romanians in 2007, where she won the European beam title and finished fourth on the same event at the World Championships.
When she re-emerged from retirement earlier this year, she gave up the handsome pension paid to former national team members in favor of the far smaller salary paid to gymnasts currently in training.
Although some of her tumbling on floor looks questionable, Ponor's experience and leadership (not to mention her steadiness on beam) make her a viable candidate for Romanian teams in 2011 and 2012.
Recently, she was filmed showing some intriguing new combinations on beam, including a roundoff to layout to two feet to immediate split jump, as well as her classic front aerial, Kotchetkova (full-twisting back handspring), bhs, layout, and Onodi to bhs, layout, and an easy looking roundoff, double pike dismount.
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