Ana Sofia Beschea and her second Europeans. Plus: a one-of-a-kind legacy

Romania’s Ana Sofia Beschea didn’t have the ideal preparation for 2025 Europeans.

And “not ideal” is actually a euphemism for how the weeks leading to Europeans had been for her, for the entire Beschea family.

As it happened last season, getting ice time prior to Ana’s departure to Tallinn was really a struggle.

And it was supposed to be different this time: a new rink was inaugurated in Bucharest at the end of August 2024 – the first to be opened in Romania’s capital since the closure of the old “Mihai Flamaropol”, in 2013 – and the rink announced they would support Ana and her skating endeavors. But Berceni Arena closed unexpectedly during Christmas and it remained closed due to technical malfunctions caused by tension fluctuations, a press release noted.

Hence, Ana had to resume her daily morning trips to Allianz-Arena in Otopeni, the rink outside Bucharest she used to go before Berceni Arena came into play. But getting the much needed ice time in Otopeni is really hard, especially during vacations, school holidays, weekends, when the rink prioritizes public skating. And even during regular time: elite skaters have only an hour per day for their practice, early in the morning, plus an additional hour in which Ana and her colleagues share the ice with recreational skaters.

How can you get ready for a high level competition like the Europeans under these circumstances?

Simply put: it’s difficult.

“The existence of a single ice rink for an entire city with over 2.5 million inhabitants, used for hockey, figure skating, public skating, leads to massive overcrowding”, Ana’s father, Razvan, shares. And then he bitterly adds: “Given the lack of culture for high performance sports in general, and winter sports in particular, doing skating in Romania is a performance itself”.

Take those words literally, because that’s exactly what Ana’s parents did the entire month leading to Europeans: entered a battle with time, in order to give their girl some reassurance she could skate her short program in Tallinn, on January 29th.

They bought additional ice hours whenever possible, drove Ana to the rink outside the city, gave tens of phone calls to the closed rink inquiring about the opening. They lamented, they quarreled, they spent every ounce of energy and money trying to find solutions, for Ana’s sake.

And if you see Ana Sofia Beschea in Tallinn, if you see her taking the ice for her short program, know this is a huge victory to her. A victory that she’s here, in her second Europeans, representing Romania, whatever difficult this might have been for her.

Also know her for who she is: a young woman in love with skating, a passion that goes long way within the family, a stubborn athlete who’s not ready to give up on skating yet, despite the very few chances that are given to Romanian skaters locally.

“I just want her to be happy. Skate well in Tallinn, be happy with how she skated. After that, I just don’t know…”, Ana Sofia’s mother, Marina, shared a week before 2025 Europeans, terribly discouraged with the circumstances, the perspectives, with everything around skating in Romania.

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by Florentina Tone

Tiny Ana, just 4 years old in this photo, pictured alongside her mother and grandfather, surely didn’t imagine her skating journey would be so difficult.

At the time, in 2008, it didn’t seem like that: Bucharest still had “Mihai Flamaropol” ice rink, Ana had her mother, a former figure skater, alongside and she was very well advised by her grandfather, also a former figure skater.

Because with Ana Sofia Beschea, skating really runs in the family and it may very well be the only case in Romania where three different generations of the same family pursued skating and made it a lifelong journey.

The grandfather is Nicolae Bellu, former competitive figure skater, holder of numerous senior national titles, with an impressive career as a national and international judge. [He passed away in 2013, when Ana was 9.]

The mother is Marina Beschea, Nicolae Bellu’s daughter, also a former figure skater, national, international and ISU judge.

So how could Ana not try skating, not know skating, not love skating?

“Ana was 2 years old when we first put her on skates – it was in Mihai Flamaropol ice rink, very close to home”, her mother remembers.

“She skated for fun at first, but when she was around 6 she joined a club and everything became serious. What made us all think was a competition she took part in, not long after she decided she would skate competitively, where she finished 16th. There were 40 girls participating, from a total of maybe 80 in her generation, and she was 16th!

And then she won her first event, Cupa Bucuresti / Bucharest Cup, so we decided to support her skating journey. I wasn’t very keen on doing that at first, I’ll admit, I knew it was going to be hard”.

But not that hard, if we may add.

There were many obstacles along the way – the closure of the sole rink in Bucharest, in 2013, being the most detrimental one, which “almost cut in half the number of active skaters”, then training in a mall for a large number of years and the continuous struggle to find ice and use it the best way possible.

Fast forward – and Ana Sofia Beschea is the only skater of her generation that still skates competitively.

She’s also Romania’s senior vice-champion (with Julia Sauter being the national champion) and she’s now travelling to the second Europeans of her career, thanks to Julia Sauter finishing in Top Ten at Europeans the last two seasons and Ana’s own efforts to get the minimum technical scores needed.

“WHAT IS EASY AT HOME, IN PRACTICE, WON’T BE EASY AT EUROPEANS”

And when we talked at length with Ana Sofia, during EduSport Trophy in December 2024, her eyes were already set on the competition in Tallinn.

She wanted to do better than in Kaunas, last year.

Her father laughed while sharing that Ana had sent him a very telling message before the season started: “Anul ăsta rup!”, the Romanian colloquial version of “This season I’ll kick ass!”.

We start with this, this goal, this message, this line of thinking, what did she mean by it?

Ana laughs heartily, and then she keeps a soft smile while answering in all seriousness. That’s who she is: a focused, mature young woman, sophomore at Faculty of Business Administration, Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest. As a matter of fact, she leaves for Tallinn during her mid-term exams and she’ll need to defer one for summer, since no postponement due to her athletic endeavor was allowed.

But as difficult as this is, sports and academic studies under one hat, Ana’s hat, “she stubbornly says: I can do them both”, her mother points out.

And not just that, she’s eager to see where this journey takes her.

Ana Sofia: “Last season, because I had had the baccalaureate exam and the college admission, I barely managed to get my jumps back. I knew Romania had two places in the women’s event at Europeans, I was in seniors, so I focused strictly on getting my TES-minimum for the competition. I was really stressed about it, I went to three events, didn’t make it, I only managed to get the scores on my fourth try and I was able to go to Kaunas.

This season, I’m focusing on details, on presentation, on perfecting my elements, on making the programs as fluid as possible. Of the two programs, I work on the short more, since it can get me into the free: I want to do every element the best I can, hit the grade of execution requirements, be less stressed in competition”.

It won’t be easy though: out of the 31 competitors, only 24 will advance to the free skate. So how does one do that, fight competition stress – how does she do that?

“I try to think that I’ve been twice before in Tallinn, for the Junior Worlds, that I’ve been to Europeans once, last season, and the atmosphere there won’t intimidate me that much. I also tell myself that I want to enjoy the experience.

Until then, I just do the best I can training-wise, conditioning-wise, to have more endurance, not get scared of the whole thing. And, if mistakes happen, to breathe and tell myself: OK, the next element will be better”.

Ana knows her lessons well: “You need to be sure about every single element there, you don’t have to play with it. You need to perform it with your eyes closed. Because the pressure is extremely high, what is easy at home, in practice, won’t be easy at Europeans”.

FAMILY LESSONS

As mentioned, her family’s skating background is really impressive. So how does Ana Sofia look at her inheritance, what did she learn from her grandfather, to start with?

Born in 1948, Nicolae Bellu was part of the first generation that learned to skate at “Mihai Flamaropol”, the outdoor ice rink opened in Bucharest in 1958 just a couple steps away from the family house.

Senior national champion, Bellu stayed at the forefront of Romanian figure skating even after his competitive years were over: he studied to become an engineer, and became one, working in research institutes, but he trained to be a figure skating judge alongside, a passion he followed incessantly throughout his life and career.

As an ISU judge, he took part in three editions of the Olympic Games and many European and World Championships. He was also the vice-president of the Romanian Skating Federation for a number of years.

“I think the first thing that I inherited from my grandfather is the passion for the sport”, Ana smiles.

“He never put pressure on me, I didn’t feel it. He had this different mentality, different from «Do everything and do it now, even with the risk of injury». He always gave me positive advice, favoring longevity, which is the thing that I wish for myself and one of the things that I admire in Julia Sauter too.

Because if we look at skating nowadays, there are mostly two categories: girls who have just turned 17-18 and who can work very easily with their bodies, and girls over 20, when there’s a big change in that regard”, says the 20-year old Ana Sofia.

“I only had my grandfather until I turned 9, so I didn’t receive as many technical details, or focused on particular elements, but he always encouraged me not to give up, to keep on trying – which, looking in retrospect, were far more important and long-term than a more practical indication for a triple jump, let’s say”.

For technical advice nowadays, Ana has her coach, Maria Coroama, her mother Marina and her father Razvan as well. And there’s even a point where Razvan’s math skills and the peculiarities of the ISU scoring system really come together.

“My dad looks into the mathematical part of my programs, the base value of the elements, less GOE, more GOE, he’s actually making my programs and the variations in Excel – and that’s extremely helpful when I need to get my TES-minimum for competitions.

When I was 13, for example, in my first junior year, I wanted to have the TES-minimum for Junior Worlds – and that was possible with the help of both my parents.

You need to have this very carefully put together, knowing the rules by heart, knowing that if you have your jumps done in the second part of the program you get an additional 10%, knowing that a well done spin brings you more points than a double Axel… So you don’t have to only focus on the jumps, you need to have the complexity of the program. And my father often comes with me at practice, he records the elements and sends the recordings to my mom, we try to analyze everything and make the needed corrections”.

That’s exactly so: on the day I meet Marina Beschea, she shows me a couple of short videos from Ana’s morning practice, “This is a spin that needs adjustment, the leg is lower than the hip…”, “That’s the step sequence, she’s done it very nice today”.

Why don’t they work together on a daily basis, as they did when Ana was younger?

Marina smiles: “It was Ana’s wish, she told me: I need you as a mother, not as a coach, I don’t want skating to come between us. And I respect that, and while we don’t work as a student and coach, I’m still very much involved”.

Born in 1973, Nicolae Bellu’s daughter, Marina, also learned to skate at the “family” rink close to home, “Mihai Flamaropol” – and, at the age of 9, she was selected in Romania’s national figure skating team.

Back then, the communist authorities had discovered the power of centralized sports, so Marina and her fellow skaters selected in the national team needed to leave their homes and head to a center, “in Bucharest, on Fizicienilor street”, which became their accommodation place, their training place.

This was Marina’s new home for five long years: “It was tough, I remember: many hours on the ice, a harsh training regiment, camps outside Bucharest… Though I had some good results as a junior, I was happy when my father came to pick me home. I always tell Ana: You’re lucky to skate on your own terms, back then we didn’t feel that joy. After that, I continued to skate for a while at «Flamaropol», then I retired and focused on school”.

She didn’t completely give up though, she had caught the bug – smiles follow.

“My father taught me how to judge, I learned the scoring system from him. I used to go to competitions, be in the organizing teams, do the math… Back then, everything was done on paper. I became a national judge, then an international one and, by the age of 30, I became an ISU judge”, Marina recalls.

ANA’S GOALS

Now wonder daughter Ana Sofia is so knowing of skating technicalities, and she’s always ready to tell you, no hesitations, about World rankings points, about the value of those points the following season, about this or that element, base value, GOE-s and everything in between.

And no wonder Ana chose to follow in her mother’s footsteps: “From this season, I’m a national judge too, I passed my exams. I wanted to have this in my track-record as well”, she smiles.

“Maybe I can be like my mother someday, judge at Europeans, at Worlds… Plus: it helps me as a skater as well: I already knew the rules, but now I know them better”.

And when it comes to that, Ana Sofia Beschea has an additional goal on her agenda: get the TES-minimum for Worlds in the near future.

“It’s a big score, I need to have a triple-triple combination, but I’m confident I can do it.

I did it for the Junior Worlds in the past, I want to try to have the minimum for the senior Worlds as well. So, after the Europeans, I really want to raise my technical level.

I sometimes hit the triple Lutz in practice, I can do the Rittberger, I can jump my Salchow with eyes closed, the Flip is more difficult but I can land it – so that’s the plan.

I feel that Julia [Sauter] had a similar trajectory, she took it step by step, she kept progressing, and I wish the same for myself”.

Ana Sofia Beschea is scheduled to take the ice for her short program at 2025 Europeans in Tallinn on January 29th, at 17:58 local time. We wish her all the best.

[Story by Florentina Tone
Photos by Bogdan Buda, Alberto Ponti, Florentina Tone
Other photos from Beschea family archive
Homepage photo by Bogdan Buda]