Romania's cradle of Olympic canoeing champions takes on water

Mila 23 -- a fishing hamlet of some 450 people in the heart of the Danube Delta -- has produced a stream of world and Olympic canoeing medals for Romania.

But it is running out of momentum, raising concerns for the future of a sport that is central to the country's sporting success.

In the past children in Mila 23, which is only accessible by boat, learned to row from an early age, and since the 1960s, around twenty have become Olympic, world or European champions.

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In total, Romania has won 34 Olympic medals in the sport, including ten gold medals.

But now in Mila 23, weeds have overgrown rotten wooden canoes abandoned on the Danube's sandy banks and at the back of gardens as locals prefer motorboats, and money to support canoeing as a sport has also dried up.

"It was a way out of poverty because my parents could not afford to keep me in school," former European canoe vice-champion Chiriac Marcov told AFP.

Forced to stop rowing shortly after the 2000 Sydney Olympics following a muscle tear, the 44-year-old now earns a living working in construction.

Chiriac, who is from the Russian-speaking Lipovan minority, like most other villagers, says he regrets that children now are unlikely to follow his path.

Vasile Diba, the 1976 Olympic kayak champion from Jurilovca, an hour by boat from Mila 23, shares those regrets.

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Diba says the communist regime -- which fell in 1989 -- used to cover the expenses to train children from a young age, eager to show off its superiority everywhere, including in sports.

But now underfunded and undermined by the lack of interest of children more attracted by new technology, Romanian canoeing has lost its lustre.

After a slow decline, the country's canoe federation was also suspended in 2016 for a year for doping.

"Before, hunger pushed parents to send their children to play sports. Today they have to pay for the equipment, for the preparation courses," Diba told AFP.

The 66-year-old used to row for the Interior Ministry's Dinamo Bucharest club, which was battling with Steaua, sponsored by the army. The two clubs had an intense rivalry across a number of sports.

Those who remain kayak enthusiasts in Mila 23, like 16-year-old Paul Marcov, are left with few chances to shine.

"Last year I won a kayak competition, but this year no one is organising it," the teenager said.

At the Tokyo Olympics, only two athletes -- Catalin Chirila and Victor Mihalachi -- will row for Romania.

"Of the thirteen teenagers recruited at the same time as me, I am the only one still canoeing," Chirila, 23, told AFP last month while training at Snagov, 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Bucharest.

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Under a leaden sky, his canoe glides over the silvery waters of the lake, bordered by imposing villas before a passing jet-ski causes strong waves that disturb his rhythm.

Coach Florin Popescu, an Olympic canoe champion at the 2000 Sydney Games, says the jet skis often disrupt the training "but we cannot do anything about it".

Despite the difficulties, he is convinced that his students will win a medal in Japan.

Offering another glimmer of hope, four-time Olympic canoe champion Ivan Patzaichin, originally from Mila 23, wants to build an "ecological" Olympic track in the delta.

He hopes this would allow athletes to train without disturbing the area classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its flora and fauna.

But the project has stalled due to bureaucracy and the difficulties of raising the necessary 100 million euros ($119 million) for it.

Manoeuvering his boat with dexterity, Diba, for his part, is pessimistic, saying Romania's chances of returning to the world canoe elite are "zero".

"If we do nothing to populate the waters, we should not hope to harvest fish," he said.