BUCHAREST, March 19: Greater financial rewards in recent years have made Romania’s female gymnasts lazy and led to withdrawal of the Olympic team champions from next month’s European Championships, their coach said Tuesday.

“The real reason for dissolving Romania’s team was the huge amounts of money they have pocketed from the wave of success in recent years,” Octavian Belu told Reuters from the Olympic centre at Deva, 350km west of Bucharest.

Romania, the world team champions five times in a row, doubled the rewards for gold medallists to $30,000 each after unprecedented success at the Sydney Olympics two years ago.

Bonuses from sponsors added to those sums and the team’s star performer Andreea Raducan, who was stripped of all-round Olympic gold for failing a drugs test after taking a common cold cure, pocketed an estimated $250,000.—Reuters