Two children from the Ungheni Children and Juniors Sports School reached the podium at the Chișinău Open table-tennis championship. According to Ungheni city hall, Serafim Godea took 2nd place and Kiril Stadnic 3rd, in the youngest age category — born 2017 and younger.
The competition, dedicated to International Children’s Day, was held on 13 June and gathered athletes from across the country. Fourteen children travelled from Ungheni to Chișinău, trained by the teacher-coaches Vasile and Mihai Adam. For them, the city hall says, the tournament was the last test before the summer holidays.
A town that does not only send children to competitions, but also hosts them
The two medals carry more weight read against a wider backdrop. In table tennis, Ungheni has become a name that matters for the youngest: in 2026, the town hosted two national championships in the sport, both at the local Sports School.
According to the official calendar of the Ministry of Education and Research, on 28–29 March Ungheni hosted the Moldova championship — National League, in the 2015-and-younger category, and on 16–17 May the Moldova U-11 championship. The Table Tennis Federation of Moldova confirmed that the May event drew around 100 children from across the country. A border town that twice in a season gathers the country’s best young players is no ordinary participant in this sport — it is a host.
What is confirmed and what comes from the city hall
The type of the Chișinău competition is clear: the “Chișinău Open table-tennis championship”, according to the organiser’s official page, is run by the General Directorate for Education, Youth and Sport together with the municipal table-tennis federation. The result itself, though — the 2nd and 3rd places of the two children from Ungheni — comes from the city hall’s announcement: the organiser had not published the official results list for the 13 June edition at the time this article was written.
The names of the 14 Ungheni athletes who competed in Chișinău also come from the official announcement: Matei Olearciuc, Luca Stepan, Iulian Panța, Roman Rusu, Vlad Sanduleac, Marin Guca, Chiril Botnari, Daniel Voloc, Serafim Godea, Kiril Stadnic, Cristian Adam, David Hîrbu, Sofia Volchivscoi and Nicoleta Budac.
Why it matters
Table tennis is one of the most accessible sports for children — a table, a bat, a ball — and exactly the kind of activity a public sports school can offer many children without barriers of cost. And when two of a town’s youngest players come back from the capital with medals, it says something about the work in an ordinary hall in Ungheni and about the coaches who do it. For a town that anxiously counts its young people, every hall that gives children a reason to stay matters.
The result (Serafim Godea — 2nd place, Kiril Stadnic — 3rd place) and the list of participants come from the public announcement of Ungheni city hall; the organiser’s official results list for the 13 June 2026 edition was not accessible at the time of writing. The competition type and organiser come from the official (archived) page of the Chișinău General Directorate for Education, Youth and Sport. The two national championships hosted in Ungheni in 2026 are confirmed by the official calendar of the Ministry of Education and Research and by the Table Tennis Federation of Moldova. The institution appears under slightly different names in official sources (Ungheni Sports School / Children and Juniors Sports School); we kept the name used by the city hall. The cover photo was published by Ungheni city hall.