Nadia Comăneci, Ciprian Marica to mentor young athletes in initiative seeking Romania’s next generation of champions

Romanian gymnastics legend Nadia Comăneci and former professional footballer Ciprian Marica will mentor the children selected to take part in GEN10, a project aimed at discovering and supporting the next generation of sporting champions launched by Vodafone Romania.

For a year, the two, together with their teams across the country, will offer the young talents direct guidance and lessons drawn from their own journeys.

The selection process is open from September 22 until the end of October. Throughout this period, parents can use a dedicated platform to upload videos of their children performing exercises recommended by the teams of Nadia Comăneci and Ciprian Marica. After the assessment, 30 gymnastics finalists and 33 football finalists will be invited to a selection stage in Bucharest in November. This stage will take the form of a live competition, following which the program’s scholarship recipients will be selected under the direct guidance of the two mentors: ten in gymnastics and eleven in football.

“Children don’t want to be another Nadia; they want to be themselves. Investing in your child doesn’t necessarily mean pursuing elite sport, but rather health and values that will stay with them throughout their lives. Many people want to invest only after someone has made it somewhere, but for them to get there, they need those five or six years in which a child grows in value, both as an athlete and as a person. Investing in children is, in fact, investing in a healthy generation,” Nadia Comăneci said.

“I am convinced that Romania’s future champions already exist. Our responsibility is to give them the environment, role models and support they need to turn potential into results. Sport has the power to change lives, but true excellence emerges when a child learns to believe in themselves, work towards their goals and not give up at the first obstacle,” Ciprian Marica added.