Maricica Puică (née Luca on 29 July 1950) is a retired Romanian middle-distance runner. She is the 1984 Olympic champion in the 3,000 metres. One of the greatest female middle-distance runners of the 1980s, she also twice won the World Cross Country Championship (1982, 1984) and broke the world record for the mile in 1982.^[2]

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Maricica Puică

Puică in 1982
Personal information
Born	(1950-07-29) 29 July 1950 (age 73) Iași, Romania[1]
Height	168 cm (5 ft 6 in)
Weight	54 kg (119 lb)
Sport
Sport	Athletics
Event	1000–3000 m
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	1000 m – 2:31.5 (1986) 1500 m – 3:57.22 (1984) 3000 m – 8:27.83 (1985)[2]
Medal record Representing  Romania Olympic Games 1984 Los Angeles 3000 m 1984 Los Angeles 1500 m World Championships 1987 Rome 3000 m World Indoor Championships 1987 Indianapolis 3000 m World Cross Country Championships 1982 Rome Women's race 1984 East Rutherford Women's race 1978 Glasgow Women's race European Championships 1982 Athens 3000 m 1986 Stuttgart 3000 m

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Puică was born in Iași, Romania and competed at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1980 Moscow Olympics, where she finished seventh in the 1,500 m. In 1978, she placed fourth in the 3,000 m at the European Championships. In March 1982, she won the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. In August, she won a silver medal in the 3,000 m at the European Championships behind Svetlana Ulmasova. She also finished fourth in the 1,500 m final. A month later in September, she broke Mary Decker's world mile record of 4:18.08 with 4:17.44 in Rieti.

Puică missed the 1983 World Championships due to injury, but returned in early 1984 to win her second World Cross Country Championship title. Then in the Summer, she won the inaugural 3,000 m title at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, a race remembered more for the collision of Mary Decker and Zola Budd. At those Games, she also won a bronze medal in the 1,500 m behind Italy's Gabriella Dorio and Romanian teammate Doina Melinte.^[1]

In July 1986, at the London Grand Prix, she broke Tatyana Kazankina's world 2,000 m record of 5:28.72, with a time of 5:28.69. At the 1986 European Championships in Stuttgart, she won a silver medal in the 3,000 m, behind Olga Bondarenko of the Soviet Union. She was also fifth in the 1,500 m final. 1987 began with her winning a bronze medal in the 3,000 m at the World Indoor Championships in Indianapolis, finishing behind the Soviet pair of Tatyana Samolenko and Bondarenko. Later that year, aged 37, she won a silver medal in the 3000 m at the World Championships in Rome, again behind Samolenko.^[2]

Puica competed at her fourth and final Olympic Games in Seoul 1988, where she dropped out of her 3000 m heat with just 200 metres to go.^[1]

In 1989, she spoke on Romanian television in support of the revolutionaries fighting against the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. (However Nicolae Ceaușescu ignored the Soviet Union boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, in contrast to the other East European countries.)