Corina Ungureanu began gymnastics at the Petrolul PloieÅŸti
club in her
hometown of PloieÅŸti, but spent the major part of her
career training in
Bucharest under Leana
Sima. At the
Deva national training center,
she was coached by Octavian Belu. Ungureanu's
first international assignment was a
junior dual meet between Romania and Germany, where
She placed first with her team and eighth in the all-around. She resurfaced on the
international scene again in 1996, when she won the all-around title at the EcoAir Cup. She did not compete in the 1996 Olympics, but was a member of the gold medal-winning Romanian teams at the 1997 and 1999 World Gymnastics Championships. She was forced to retire in 1999
due to a spinal cord injury.
After retiring from gymnastics, she sparked some controversy by posing nude for the January 2000 edition of Playboy Romania. These pictures were reprinted in Playboy Japan in May 2000 and led to her producing a nude photobook, Corina Ungureanu Photograph Collection (コリーナ・ウングレアーヌ 写真集, Corina Ungureanu Photograph Collection?) ISBN 4-7976-7021-5, in Japan later that year. In 2002, along with former teammates Lavinia Miloşovici and Claudia Presecan, Ungureanu appeared in two Japanese DVDs, Gold Bird and Euro Angels, which included scenes of the three gymnasts performing gymnastics routines topless. A second nude photobook, LCC Gold ISBN 4-87279-118-5, appeared at the same time. A number of photographs from the photobook and DVDs were subsequently published in the Japanese magazine Shukan Gendai. An edited version of the DVDs entitled 3 Gold Girls was released in Germany in 2004.
The DVDs proved controversial as some of the scenes and publicity material featured the gymnasts in their official Romanian team leotards. It later emerged that they had not been aware of the contractual obligation to wear their official leotards until filming had already begun [1]. In the wake of the controversy, Ungureanu and her former teammates were banned from coaching or competing in Romania from 2002 to 2007. To compensate, Ungureanu spent some time coaching in Italy.
In 2004, her authorized biography, Corina Ungureanu: Beginning and End, written by Laurian Stãnchescu was published. Ungureanu is now also a spokesmodel for Bucovina SA, a bottled water company in Romania.
--Wikipedia
Romanian Gymnastics Photo Gallery
