Ion PANTURU

In 1968, together with brakesman Nicolae Neagoe, Ion Panțuru won Romania’s first medal at the Winter Olympics – which remains the country’s only Winter Olympic medal through 2014. In Grenoble, Panțuru also finished fourth in the four-man bob, just a tenth away from a second medal. The following year, Panțuru claimed a silver medal at the World Championships in Lake Placid, with Dumitru Focşeneanu as a brakeman. However, he lost this medal in an American car while hitchhiking to the airport. The medal was found in a basement 30 years later, and was returned to Panțuru. His last international medal was won at the 1973 World Championships, when Panțuru and Focşeneanu placed third. At the European Championships Panțuru won gold as pilot of the four-man teams in 1967 and 1971, and had runner-up finishes in four-man in 1968-69 and two-man in 1967 and 1969, adding a bronze medal in four-man in 1970. Before becoming a bobsledder, Panțuru was also a decent football player, as a goalkeeper for Carpați Sinaia in Romania’s second division. He later served as coach of the Romanian bobsled team