The life of champions is not easy at all. It takes a lot of effort to climb to the podium. To feel the thrill of a high, you have to feel the pain while getting ready. Or as Iulian Teodosiou, multiple European fencing medalist, says: “I am a friend of pain.”

Between Medals is a campaign launched by Banca Transilvania in partnership with the Romanian Olympic Sports Committee, which aims to support the efforts of Romanian athletes.

Iulian Theodosiou knows that you can’t perform without work, and that fencing “is quite a difficult sport.”

The efforts of competing athletes are not only physical, they also have to overcome mental ones: “There are moments when I lose my temper or get more angry, but I felt that this is the way I should go, try to calm down every time, think more about , is it worth getting angry over a certain thing,” Julian said.

And the pain? Pain is part of the game for athletes.

“Us athletes generally have a much higher pain tolerance because you have to work through certain pains. In training or in competition, you have a clear goal and you have to achieve it at all costs.” – Julian Theodosiou.

But all the effort is worth it when you get on the podium because you are proud of yourself: “There are moments when I let my emotions come out. When I went to the qualifier and finished it, I felt such an amazing release and then I felt really proud of myself. I want to release my emotions more and more often and I expect to surprise myself every time I step on the podium to see what I still have,” said the European fencing medalist.

Julian does not want to be a mediocre athlete and works hard to achieve what he wants.

Because we see them on the podium and are proud of them, but we cannot quantify the hours of work, pain, stress and effort.

The Romanian flag was raised to the highest height of joy and proudly carried by the athletes. They noticed the proud smiles of such success.

What was not visible was thousands of hours of training, clapping, pain in every fiber. This could only be seen in the halls, on the fields in the morning, on the athletic tracks.

We admire the effort that went into these medals and support them for the next ones. We have no choice.

BT and COSR – a partnership to support the efforts of Romanian athletes.