BUCHAREST. Feb 1: A Romanian gymnastics coach was jailed for eight years on Tuesday for beating

to death an 11-year-old girl during a training session, reports Reuter.

A Bucharest court found Florin Gheorghe. 25. a former trainer at the capital's elite Dinamo Club sports school, guilty of manslaughter in the November 1993 killing of gymnast Adriana Giurca.

Under Romanian law the charges carry a maximum jail sentence of 10 years.

Gheorghe, who has been in detention in February 1994. was not present In court, and neither were Giurca's parents, who issued the lawsuit over their daughter's killing.

After learning from lawyers about Gheorghe's eight-year jail sentence, the girl's mother. Maria Giurca. said the court had befen to lenlght.

■"That trainer hit my daughter like a beasi and her death was more than manslaughter It was murder and he should have been" punished for that. Giurca told Reuters by phone.

The court also set. ""moral damages" at 10 million lei 15 600 dollars), which Gheorghe will have to pay to the Giurca family.

"The nioney Is nothing for me and my husband. No money r an bring our .daughter back to life. Giurca said.

Tlie Giurcas said they would sue. the Dinamo Gymnastics School, which they accused of Irresponsibility’' In employing what they called "a criminal . trainer

The court heard1 testimony that Gheorghe flew into a rage during a training session on the balance beam in November 1993, throwing the. tiny Giurca to the ground and beating her.

The girl died in hospital several hours later.

"If sports performances are built on physical and moral ordeal, all the gold medals that Romania won throughout the years mean nothing." Adriana's father told Reuters.

Romanian sports officials have rejected accusations that beatings were used in training to turn Romanian gymnasts into lop performers.

Commenting on Adriana • Guirca's death. Romanian Gymnastics Federation president Adrian Stoica called it an "unfortunate event." "Such behaviour is unusual In our gymnastics schools." he said, adding: "It was an accident.”

But Adriana Giurca's teammates told the court that corporal punishment was "nor-mjii" in their school whenever they failed to perform up to their trainers' standards.

We accepted the beatings and the pain because we were convinced that this would open the door to top performance for us." a young girl gymnast told a court hearing last week.

Octavian, Bellu, chief trainer at Romania's Olympic Gymnastics Centre In the Transylvanian city of Deva, said that despite changes In Romania since the 1989 fall of communism, what he called, "an iron discipline" was still the best way to attain top performances.