Monica Theodorescu

Equestrienne Monica Theodorescu was of Romanian descent, as her father Gheorghe Teodorescu had started for his home country in 1956, but fled to West Germany in 1959 after the Rolex Grand Prix, the CHIO of Aachen. Her mother, Inge Theodorescu, also a dressage rider and show jumper, was briefly married to Hans Günter Winkler.

Monica started in 1988 for the West German team and in 1992 and 1996 for the re-unified German team, winning three team gold medals in team dressage. In 1992 she was awarded the German Bambi Media Prize. In that year, Theodorescu earned the fourth-best result in the dressage qualification in Barcelona, but the FEI only allowed three riders per country to participate in the individual final competition, and as a result, she was not advanced and finished 17th. In 1996 she then placed unfortunate fourth in the individual final.

Theodorescu had won a team gold medal and the individual bronze medal at the 1990 FEI World Equestrian Games. At the European Championships she earned one gold, two silvers, and two bronzes. She was awarded the Silver Bay Leaf, Germany’s highest sports award. In 2021, she became Germany’s national head coach for dressage.