Marian Drăgulescu (born December 18, 1980 in Bucharest) is a Romanian artistic gymnast. During his senior gymnastics career he has won an impressive 31 medals at Olympic games, World or European Championships among which eight gold medals at World Championships. He excels in vault and floor on which he was a multiple world champion and Olympic medallist. His name will remain the history of gymnastics not only because of his world titles on floor (2001, 2002, 2006, 2009) and vault (2001, 2005, 2006, 2009), but also because of the extremely difficult vault named after him: handspring double front somersault with half turn. He was also an excellent all around gymnast: On the all around event he is a European champion (2004) and a bronze medallist (2000), and placed 8th at the 2004 Olympic Games.

As a young boy, Dragulescu only attended gymnastics lessons because they were an excuse to get out of karate. However, as training became more intense he decided to switch to swimming because it was free. His father was not aware that his son was not at gymnastics. But Marian soon went back to the gym as swimming was no longer free after three months. His debut as a junior at a major international competition was in 1998 European Championships in St. Petersburg. Here he won gold for pommel horse, silver on vault, bronze on floor and with the team and placed eight all around.

His first participation as a senior at a major event was at the 1999 World Championships, where he placed fourth on vault, eight on high bar and 26th all around. One year later he won an all-around bronze, a gold on floor and a silver with the team at the 2000 European championships in Bremen ahead of the Sydney Games. His debut at the Olympic Games in 2000 was rather modest, coming sixth on the floor and 13th in the all-around. He soon overcame the disappointment suffered in Sydney at the world championships at Ghent in Belgium the following year, where he was in top form, winning gold on the floor and on vault. In 2002 he added three more gold medals to his collection on two on vault and with the team and a bronze on floor at the 2002 Europeans and at the 2002 Worlds. For his achievements he was awarded the “Gymnast of the Year Award” (2002) by the International Press Association. He received this award during the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim. Here he won silver on vault, placed fourth on floor in a final in which silver was not awarded, sixth all around and fourth with the team.

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