GABRIELA SZABO – DISCIPLINE AND JOY FOR A SUCCESSFUL CAREER
11 Oct 2018
Multiple Olympic, World and European Athletic Champion, Gabriela Szabo was named the world's best athlete for her performances and world records.
Her talent and athletic qualities have been remarkable ever since her junior time, successfully obtaining outstanding performances at the European and World Junior Championships, followed afterwards by an extraordinary senior career since 1994.
Gabi Szabo has established several world records for 2000, 3000 and 5000 meters, being named the world's best athlete and Europe's best athlete in 1999. Some of her most important performances include the Olympic title for 5,000-meter won in 2000 and three gold medals at the World Outdoors Championships (1997 - 5,000 meters, 1999 - 5,000 meters, 2001 - 1,500 of meters).
Gabriela Szabo said that when a person is looking to perform in sports, they need to give up some pleasures, remaining faithful to a lifestyle that involves rigor and discipline. This belief seems to have inspired her after she gave up her sporting activity, in all her subsequent positions and projects that she started. Thus, Gabi Szabo held various important administrative functions, such as Vice-President of the Romanian Athletics Federation, member of the European Athletics Council, Minister of Youth and Sports in 2014, and later general manager of CSM Bucharest. Since 2014 she holds the honorary title of Ambassador of Romanian Tourism, together with seven other personalities from the Romanian cultural and sports life.
At the photo sessions for the „100 de chipuri” project at the Athénée Palace, we had the pleasure to talk with Gabriela Szabo and find out more about her wishes for future generations and about her favorite dessert, which the hotel’s pastry chefs would recreate in her honor.
This year, when everyone thinks more about the past and less about the future, tell us if you have any thoughts or recommendations for young people who will look at these images in over 20 years’ time.
Each generation tried to do great things for this country and I am glad that I, Gabi Szabo, in my period of athletic glory, was able to write an important page in the history of Romanian sport; a history and a story that I would like to see passed further to future generations. So I can say that whatever you do, you need to do it with great passion, with love for what you want to do, with love for the nation and for this people that I personally wear in my soul and took with me wherever I competed. Even today, when I don’t perform anymore, I still promote the values of my country and the values that have guided me in my life to this day.
CARAMEL AND GOLD SWEET DELIGHT
In honor of this champion who made millions of Romanians rejoice her victories, Mihaela Dima, Pastry Chef at Athénée Palace created a "Delight with sweet caramelized corn", a light vanillated dessert - vanilla being one of Gabriela Szabo's favorite ingredients - with very few calories. The Pastry Chef removed sugar, chocolate and flour, keeping a crispy biscuit with marzipan, a salty sweetcorn caramel, corn poppy foam and a vanilla ganache. The golden foils used as decoration honors the champion, reminding of the many medals that our athlete holds.
We invite you to taste this dessert in Café Athénée during 29 October – 4 November 2018.
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