Ana Maria Popescu

Ana Maria Popescu, formerly known as Ana Maria Brânză (, born 26 November 1984), is a Romanian left-handed épée fencer.

Popescu is a four-time team European champion, 2013 individual European champion, and two-time team world champion.

A five-time Olympian, Popescu is a two-time individual Olympic silver medalist and 2016 team Olympic champion.

Personal life

Brânză was born in 1984 in the Rahova district of Bucharest, the second of two children. A very energetic child, she was pushed by her parents towards sport. She first tried tennis because the courts were not far from home, but she left after one year because she was the only left-handed player and because of the lack of competitive events. When she was ten, her elder brother Marius, who played football for a school team of CSA Steaua București, took her to his club's fencing hall in Ghencea. She did not care much for the idea at first, as she was not a fan of ''The Three Musketeers'', but she was attracted to the sport as soon as she set foot in the fencing hall. She turned to épée because there was no other left-handed weapon available in the club when she began training.

Brânză became champion of Romania for her age group after only six months of training. She was noticed by national coach Dan Podeanu, who after a trial selected her for centralized training. At 13 years old, at the beginning of class VIII, she left her family and moved to Craiova to train at the Junior Olympic Centre for épée with other athletes, much of which were older than her. She pursued her studies at the Petrache-Trișcu Sports High School, which later gave her name to one of its alleys. The high school offers a specific curriculum for young athletes with three or four class hours a day, the rest being devoted to sport, but the sports facilities were in a rather run-down state in post-Ceaușescu Romania. For lack of a dedicated building, they first held their training sessions in the community hall of the high school. As there was no locker room, they had to change behind curtains.

After her ''bacalaureat'' she was offered an athletic scholarship from an American university, but she chose to stay in Romania. She first hoped to study psychology at university, before setting for the Faculty of sports and physical education of the University of Craiova, where she obtained a master in 2007. The same year she was awarded the title of master emeritus in sports (''Maestru Emerit al Sportului'').

She joined in 2001 one of the main Romanian sport clubs, CSA Steaua, which is run by the Ministry of National Defence of Romania, and received the grade of sergeant. She is however under no military obligation and is seconded full-time to her sport. Being from a military family–her grandfather, father and brother served in the army–, she regularly appears in uniform in the media. She was promoted to lieutenant after her studies, and holds the grade of major.

Brânză is committed to promoting student sport. She also supports AITA, an association for autistic children in Bucharest. From September 2013 to November 2014 she ran the campaign ' (“run on your birthday”) which encouraged people to celebrate their birthday by engaging in physical activity and gathering funds for a charitable cause.

In August 2015, she married Pavel Popescu, who plays water polo for CSA Steaua, and announced her intention to change her name for competition.

Also was involved in an animation project, to dubbed a character in Romanian for the movie “Rise of the guardians”.

Career

2001–2004

Brânză won her first senior national championship at the age of fifteen. She attended her first international competitions as a member of CSM–LPS Craiova. She took part in the 1999 Cadet World Championships in Keszthely, finishing only 28th, but the confrontation with fencers from countries with better training conditions spurred her to train harder: “I saw kids from France wearing immaculate white outfits, while I had a yellowed kit and sneakers ripped up at the toe. But I went after them to defeat them.”

She joined in 2001 the fencing section of CSA Steaua under coach Cornel Milan. The same year she posted her first significant result with a gold medal at the Cadet World Championships and a team silver medal at the Junior World Championships, both in Gdańsk. These achievements prompted the Romanian media to compare her to Olympic foil champion Laura Badea-Cârlescu after prevailing over China's Tan Li. She was praised for “a remarkable tactical mastery for a seventeen and a half year old girl”. The same year she took part in her first senior major competitions. At the European Championships in Moscow she reached the quarter-finals before being eliminated 9–15 by Lyubov Shutova. At the World Championships in Lisbon she made it to the semi-finals, where she was defeated 6–15 by Germany's Imke Duplitzer and came away with a bronze medal. She would later call it her fondest victory, because she was very young at the time and was there without her coach, with only her sabre colleagues as companions.

Having reached the top quickly, she lost her previous fearlessness and began to feel apprehensive before her bouts: “When you get on the piste, it looks to you like your opponent is out to steal your dreams.” She struggled throughout the 2002–03 season, managing only a quarter-finals finish in Prague. A double gold medal haul at the Junior European Fencing in Porec helped her overcome the hurdle. That season saw also the first apparition of the Romanian women's épée team in senior competitions, namely the 2003 World Fencing Championships, where they finished 8th.

In April 2004, she won the Junior World Championships again after defeating Bianca Del Carretto 15–14 in the final. She reached the quarter-finals in the senior European Championships in Copenhagen. She qualified for the 2004 Summer Olympics by earning a silver medal at the zonal qualifying tournament in Ghent, seeing off top-seed Sophie Lamon of Switzerland in the table of 16, but losing in the final to Sonja Tol of the Netherlands. For her Olympic début in Athens Brânză managed to beat experienced fencer Adrienn Hormay of Hungary, but stumbled in the table of 16 against China's Zhang Li and finished 16th. She later explained she felt overwhelmed by the Olympic experience and like a child lost amongst big-name athletes.

2004–2008

In the 2004–05 season, she reached her first podium in the Fencing World Cup with a silver medal at the Budapest Grand Prix. This result, along with a quarter-final place at the 2005 World Championships in Leipzig, where she lost to Estonia's Maarika Võsu, allowed her to close the season in the Top 10 for the first time in her career. The next season she won her first World Cup title in Budapest and posted four top-eight finishes. At the European Championships in İzmir she was defeated in the second round by teammate Iuliana Măceșeanu. In the team event Romania prevailed 45–43 over Russia and met Hungary in the final. Brânză defeated Tímea Nagy in the last leg, allowing Romania to edge out a 33–32 win. This victory over a double Olympic champion encouraged her to think she could become a champion in her own right. She reached the quarter-finals again at the 2006 World Championships in Turin, but yielded to Nagy this time.

In the 2007–08 season, Brânză claimed the gold medal at the St Petersburg World Cup, the silver in Budapest and Havana, and the bronze in Luxembourg and Barcelona. She climbed to the second place in world rankings, gaining qualification to the women's individual épée event of the 2008 Summer Olympics– women's team épée did not feature on the Olympic programme for that edition. The 2008 European Championships held in Kiev in July were the last rehearsal before the Olympic Games. Brânză reached the semi-finals, where she saw off Russia's Anna Sivkova. In the final she lost 15–10 to Hormay, whom she had defeated at the Athens Olympics, and came away with the silver–her first individual European medal. In the team event Romania overcame Poland and Hungary, then largely prevailed over Germany in the final to earn their second continental title.

In August, the Romanian delegation arrived in Beijing two weeks ahead of the competition. Being the only Romanian epeeist at the Games, she trained with foilists Cristina Stahl and Virgil Sălișcan. As No.2 seed she received a bye in the first round. She then disposed 15–11 of Japan's Megumi Harada and beat 15–13 Russia's Lyubov Shutova to reach the semi-finals, where she met experienced, 39-year-old Ildikó Mincza-Nébald of Hungary. After a very balanced bout where no fencer managed to gain more than a two-hit advantage, Brânză struck the decisive hit to win her ticket to the final. After a brief respite she met world No.1 Britta Heidemann of Germany, who acquired an early four-hit lead. Brânză rallied to 10–12 in the third and last period, but the German struck three hits in a row, closing the bout 11–15 with a double touche. Brânza attributed Heidemann's victory to her superior physical condition, explaining that the German had "fenced like a man".

For her silver medal, Brânză was awarded the Romanian order for sports merit (''Ordinul “Meritul Sportiv”''), second class. She finished first in the overall women's épée World Cup for two consecutive seasons, 2007–2008 and 2008–2009. She was designated a member of the athletes commission of the International Fencing Federation by its executive committee for the period 2009–2013.

2008–2012

After the Olympics, Brânză began to complain of tendon pain in her weapon hand, but the competition rhythm did not allow her to attend to it. At the 2009 European Championships in Plovdiv she was defeated in the second round by fellow Romanian Anca Măroiu, but secured her third continental team title after Romania defeated successively Russia, Germany and Poland. Teammate Simona Gherman jokingly referred to the team as the “ girls”, after the ''Powerpuff Girls'' anime, because of the hardships of the match against Russia. The nickname stuck. They would later incorporate it in their pre-match battle cry: “We're the Powerpuff Girls and we'll make mincemeat of you!” ( ro, Suntem fetițele PowerPraf și am venit să vă facem pilaf!)

Brânză was rested for the Romanian national championships to spare her hand. She arrived with a No.1 ranking to the World Championships in Antalya, but warned beforehand that she was only fencing at 50 to 60% of her ability due to her wrist problems. She was eliminated 9–10 in the table of 16 by Canada's Sherraine Schalm. Romania were defeated in the first round by Italy, again by a single hit, and finished sixth after the placement matches.

After this failure, Brânză resolved to address her wrist issues. Medical investigations in Romania and in France showed that her condition was operable, but that the surgery would likely end her fencing career. She chose instead to take a break in her career to follow a strict recovery program. After a pause of several months, she earned a gold medal in her first two competitions, the Florina and Nanjing 2010 World Cup events. Up to 2012 she suffered from left-wrist pains and had to get medical attention after each competition.

In the 2010 World Fencing Championships in Paris, Brânză was again eliminated early in the individual event, but won the first Romanian team gold in épée with Simona Gherman, Loredana Dinu and Anca Măroiu. Brânză contributed more than half the hits scored by Romania in the final against Germany. Her last relay against Imke Duplitzer, which she won 18–10, was described as “a real example of technique and tactical intelligence” in an otherwise “quite monotonous” match.

In 2011, Brânză took the bronze medal in the individual event of the 2011 European Fencing Championships in Sheffield and the gold medal in the team event after defeating Russia 45-31. The victory ceremony was marred by an incident when ''Trei culori'', the former, communist-era national anthem of Romania, was played instead of the current ''Deșteaptă-te, române!'' Brânză decided to walk off in protest and convinced her teammates of following her.

At the 2011 World Fencing Championships in Catania, Brânză was stopped in the semifinals by Sun Yujie of China and was doomed to a bronze medal, the second World Championships medal in her career. In the team event, the “ girls” saw off easily Great Britain then Poland, but Brânză was hit on her weapon hand during the quarter-finals against Poland and had to get medical attention. She fenced with a bandaged hand and only one relay in the semifinal against Germany, which Romania won with a tight score of 24–23. She was to be rested during the final against China, but was called eventually to replace a stressed out Măroiu. She lost her first relay 1–4 to Sun Yujie, but her 4–1 against Xu Anqi contributed to Romania's sudden-death victory. Brânză was crowned team world champion for the second time in a row. For this performance she, Măroiu and Alexandru, as members of the military club CSA Steaua, received the emblem of honour of the Romanian Army ( ro, emblema de onoare a Armatei României) and all members of the team received honorary citizenship of Craiova.

In May 2012, the Romanian team received new kit from their equipment sponsor PBT, including red, yellow, and blue coloured masks which allow them to form as a team the tricolour flag of Romania. Because nobody else wanted it, Brânză opted for the yellow mask, which has since become her trademark. She was considered to carry the flag for Romania at the Olympics, but she declined, citing her left hand problem.

Number 1 in world rankings in April 2012, she went for gold in the London 2012 Summer Olympics, but she was beaten 14–13 in the round of 16 by Ukraine's Yana Shemyakina

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