There, he won gold on pommel horse, silver on vault, and bronze on floor and in the team event, and he placed eight in the individual all-around.

[2] Drăgulescu's first participation as a senior at a major event was at the 1999 World Championships, where he placed fourth on vault, eight on high bar[3] and 26th all around.

[4] One year later he won an all-around bronze, a gold on floor and a silver with the team at the 2000 European championships in Bremen ahead of the Sydney Games.

He soon overcame the disappointment suffered in Sydney at the world championships at Ghent in Belgium the following year, where he was in top form, winning gold on the floor and on vault.

[7] At the 2004 Olympic Games Drăgulescu helped his team to a bronze medal and was a forerunner in the all around event until a mistake on the high bar, after which he still thrilled the crowd with a difficult routine.

However Drăgulescu was still awarded the bronze, a controversial decision because the disparity between the judges scores was greater than is permitted and therefore some or all of them should have been altered.

After a hard landing to the back of his head on a layout Thomas salto, he twice attempted to run into his final tumbling pass.

[8] Romanian doctors then advised Drăgulescu to immediately stop training and undergo a detailed investigation in the United States to assess the seriousness of his injury.

[10][11] Drăgulescu was very disappointed when he failed to medal at the Beijing Olympics, saying "my soul broke" after he fell on the landing of his second vault attempt.

He went to coach gymnastics alongside his former team colleagues Marius Urzică and Dan Potra at Dinamo Club Bucharest.

[16] After skipping 2011's spring competition season, Drăgulescu made another comeback in the Romanian Nationals at the end of August.

On 1 November 2015 Drăgulescu participated in the 2015 World Championships held in Glasgow, Scotland, and won the silver medal in the individual vault event final with an average combined score of 15.400.

[19] His two vaults were the "Drăgulescu" or front handspring double (tucked) somersault with ½ twist, his own skill, and "Li Xiaopeng" or a "half on–2½ off" with D-scores 6.0 and 6.2.

[20] At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro that August, Drăgulescu participated in and qualified for the event final on vault.

The first time happened at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens where he missed out on the gold medal and settled for silver when he tied for the highest score with 9.787 in the individual floor exercise apparatus finals.

At the 2017 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Drăgulescu finished the individual vault final in fourth place with an average combined score of 14.716.

At the 2019 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Drăgulescu repeated his 2017 performance by placing fourth again in the individual vault final with an average combined score of 14.624.