Petty officer Valentin Popa, a silver medallist at the latest edition of the INVICTUS Games held in Düsseldorf, Germany, is among the volunteers running on the yellow route in the 10th edition of the INVICTUS Veterans’ Relay that started this morning in Targu Mures heading for Medias, write Agerpres.
Popa this September won the silver medal in the IT5 men’s 1,500m wheelchair racing event. „Our comrade Valentin Popa is among the 65 volunteers who set off this morning from Targu Mures headed for Medias. Later, other volunteers who were not registered joined us on the route. The relay teams are made up of civilian volunteers and soldiers, professional and amateur athletes and wounded soldiers – members of the INVICTUS Team Romania at the INVICTUS Games. To our surprise, there are also children among the runners with the yellow relay baton, which makes us happy.
The INVICTUS Veterans Relay left around 06:30hrs from the Theatre Square in Targu Mures. The volunteers will carry the yellow baton on the route Targu Mures – Orba de Mures – Tarnaveni – Medias. We are running with the national flag and we will stop at the monuments honouring the fallen soldiers who died so that we can exist today. We will remember the great-grandfathers and grandfathers who fought for our freedom,” Lieutenant-Colonel Alexandru Ivanof of the Public Relations Department of the Special Operations Command told AGERPRES on Friday. The Targu Mures Garrison welcomed, a day ago, the yellow baton carried by soldiers from the 385th Iancu de Hunedoara Artillery Battalion of the Gendarmerie detachment, the Municipal Police and the local Police of Odorheiul Secuiesc and soldiers from the 72nd Negru Voda CBRN Defence Battalion of Sighisoara. The baton was taken over this morning by the volunteers belonging to the Special Operations Forces Command and all the defence and public peace bodies of Targu Mures, running under the slogan is „Eroii nu mai au nevoi, eroii ne mai au pe noi” (Heroes no longer have needs, heroes still have us).
The 10th edition of the Invictus Veterans Relay is a national event conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of National Defence with the aim of promoting the memory of Romanian heroes through sport. „The activity takes place between October 5 – 25, 2023 and involves carrying three relay batons, each of them standing for one colour in Romania’s tricolour flag, on three different routes.
The runners accompanied by cyclists left Bucharest, Pitesti and Calarasi on October 5. All three routes will end at Carei on the Day of the Romanian Army, completing the tricolour flag, and thus reenacting October 25, 1944 and honouring the heroes and veterans of Romania who sacrificed themselves so that we, today, have a place we can call home,” said Ivanov.
