Florentina Costina Iusco, born Marincu (born 8 April 1996 in Deva) is a Romanian track and field athlete who competes in the long jump.
Iusco grew up in Deva, Romania, a city famous for gymnastics. She was interested in sports and as her physique was not suited to gymnastics she focused on athletics instead. Her international debut came at the senior level when she was aged sixteen. At the 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships she came 17th, failing to go beyond six metres.[1] She came to prominence internationally with a gold medal double in the long jump and triple jump at the 2013 World Youth Championships in Athletics – becoming only the second athlete to achieve that feat, after her compatriot Cristine Spataru.[2] She ended that year with personal bests of 6.54 m (21 ft 5+1⁄4 in) for the long jump and 13.81 m (45 ft 3+1⁄2 in) for the triple jump.[3]
In her 2014 season, she set a series of personal bests, including 6.71 m (22 ft 0 in) for the long jump, 11.85 seconds for the 100 metres and 7.40 seconds for the 60 metres.[3] Iusco won her first senior medal at the age of eighteen at the 2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships – after a jump of 6.57 m (21 ft 6+1⁄2 in) in the qualifying round, she had a personal best of 6.79 m (22 ft 3+1⁄4 in) in the final, which brought her the bronze medal behind Ivana Španović and Sosthene Taroum Moguenara.[4]
Iusco is currently serving a two-year competition ban set to run from February 2024 to January 2026 in relation to an anti-doping rule violation after testing postive for furosemide in April 2023.[5] Iusco's initial reprimand and no period of ineligibility issued by the Romania's National Anti-Doping Organisation was overturned by CAS following an appeal by WADA.[6]
