Daniela Sofronie
| Daniela Șofronie | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Nicoleta Daniela Șofronie | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nickname(s) | Dana | ||||||||||||||||||
| Country represented |
 Romania
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| Born |
February 12, 1988 Constanța, Romania |
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| Discipline | Women's artistic gymnastics | ||||||||||||||||||
| Club | CSS Constanța | ||||||||||||||||||
| Head coach(es) | Octavian Belu | ||||||||||||||||||
| Assistant coach(es) | Mariana Bitang | ||||||||||||||||||
| Former coach(es) | Mirela Szemerjai | ||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Nicoleta Daniela Șofronie (born February 12, 1988, in Constanța, Romania) is a Romanian artistic gymnast. She is an Olympic and European gold medalist with the team, as well as the silver medalist on floor exercise at the 2004 Summer Olympics and the all-around silver medalist at the 2004 European Championships.
Șofronie started gymnastics in 1992 in her hometown, Constanța, and moved to Deva in 2002 to train with the national team. In 2003, she was an alternate to the Romanian team at the 2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
Practically unknown before 2004, she burst onto the international scene with a silver medal in the all-around final at the 2004 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Amsterdam. Her score in the all-around was 0.38 points behind that of the gold medalist, Alina Kozich of Ukraine, one of the narrowest margins of victory in European history. After three rotations (vault, uneven bars and balance beam), Kozich was 0.137 points behind Șofronie. However, in the last rotation, the floor exercise, Șofronie did not receive full credit for her dance connections, which lowered the start value of her routine to 9.70. At the same time, speculation was made that a Russian judge, Lyubov Adrianova, had influenced the elevation of Kozich's start value from 9.90 to 10. Despite this controversy, the European Union of Gymnastics and the International Federation of Gymnastics both affirmed the results of the competition. Șofronie also contributed to the Romanian team's gold-medal performance in Amsterdam, the first time since 1998 that they had taken this title. A picture of her performing at the championships was on the cover of the June/July 2004 issue of International Gymnast.
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