On Sunday, 23 August, in the first session of the day, in Klokot, Kosovo, a 16-year-old athlete from Unțești, Ungheni district, lifted more than any other competitor in her category. Nicoleta Cojocaru became European youth weightlifting champion in the 57 kilogram category and set three European youth records.
The figures come from the official report of the European Weightlifting Federation (EWF): 87 kilograms in the snatch, 108 kilograms in the clean and jerk, 195 kilograms in total. All three are European youth records.
A European youth record means that no athlete under 17 anywhere in Europe has officially lifted more in the 57 kilogram category.
How large the gap is
Second place, Türkiye’s Irem Selcuk, finished on 173 kilograms — 22 kilograms behind Cojocaru. Third, Ukraine’s Viktoriia Fedchenko, totalled 165 kilograms, 30 kilograms back.
What that means is visible in the rest of the day: on the same Sunday, the other three titles were decided by 4, 6 and 17 kilograms respectively over second place.
In weightlifting there are two lifts — the snatch (the bar goes overhead in a single movement) and the clean and jerk (the bar is first brought to the chest, then driven overhead). The total is the sum of the best successful lift in each. Cojocaru was first in both lifts, so she took the total title as well.
A second international competition won in a month and a half
The Kosovo gold came 46 days after the one in Cali, Colombia, where on 8 July the same athlete became a triple world youth champion and set two world records. There her total was 202 kilograms.
She took the European title, in other words, with 7 kilograms less than she had lifted in Colombia.
The titles did not appear out of nowhere this summer. In May, in Ismailia, Egypt, Cojocaru set a world youth record and a European youth record in the snatch; and in 2023, aged 13, she became U15 European champion in the 55 kilogram category.
In weightlifting, “youth” means the age category up to 17, while “junior” means up to 20. The competition, hosted by Kosovo in Klokot, ran from 20 to 27 August and was the European Youth & U15 Championships.
Two champions out of a garage in Unțești
What ties the result to Ungheni district is more than a birthplace. Unțești has 1,127 inhabitants and lies about 12 kilometres from the town of Ungheni, and Nicoleta Cojocaru lifted her first barbell there, in a gym set up inside a garage bought and paid for out of his own pocket by coach Gheorghe Gorencu, who died in 2023.
The same gym produced Danu Secrieru, born in 2008: silver at the senior European Championships in Chișinău in April 2025, and a triple world youth champion in Lima a month later. Two world-class athletes, from the same village, out of the same room.
Since 2025, Unțești no longer appears in the national weightlifting squad lists. Nicoleta Cojocaru now trains in Chișinău, under coach Sergiu Crețu.
The rest of the delegation
Moldova reached the podium once more that same day: Iulian Danalachi took bronze in the total, in the 70 kilogram boys’ U15 category, with 214 kilograms.
All three European youth records in the 57 kilogram category now belong to Nicoleta Cojocaru — and she set every one of them at a single competition.