Israeli Olympians blend youth, experience in search of gold
By Viva Sarah Press
(September 15) - It's not that triple jumper Rogel Nahum is pessimistic, it's just that he is cautiously optimistic.
Nahum, 33, is captain of this year's 40-strong Israeli delegation to the Sydney Olympics - the country's biggest and most promising group of athletes since 1952, when the state first partook in the Games.
While the hype is that Israel will bring home gold and everyone from the media to sports officials are trying to calculate the medal haul, three-time Olympian Nahum prefers not to test fate. "I'm not a prophet," he said when asked for his guess. "I'm not in charge of the medals."
If local sports aficionados were responsible for handing out the awards, kayaker Michael Kalganov, pole vaulter Alex Averbukh and sailboarder Amit Inbar would all sport new pendants.
Kalganov, 25, is touted as Israel's best hope for gold. He has twice won the gold medal in the 200m. single kayak race at the World Championships in 1998 and '99. At the European Championships in Poland in July, he won a gold medal in the K1 1000m., and a silver medal in the K1 500m. races.
Media sweetheart Averbukh has been featured in the news over the last few weeks for his comments that he is "going for gold" and that he will soon sing Israel's "national anthem on the podium."
The 25-year-old Siberian-born immigrant became the first Israeli medal-winner in a World Athletics Championship when he won a bronze medal in Seville last year with a jump of 5.80m. He has since broken the national pole vault record with a jump of 5.85m in July at the Israel Athletic Championships.
Inbar, who won the silver medal in the European championships in May, hopes these Olympics will be better than the Barcelona Games in 1992.
There he placed fourth, which he said was disappointing. Still, the 28-year-old Inbar is one of Israel's most accomplished sportsmen.
Swimmers Vered Borochovsky, Yoav Bruck, Eitan Orbach, Micky Halika and Yoav Gat have also been tabbed as having "solid" chances in placing in the top three. So have the sailing duo Shani Kedmi and Anat Fabrikant. And recently, high jumper Constantin Matusevich has been touted for a medal, after his first-place showing at the 30th Rieti (Italy) Grand Prix track meet earlier this month.
While the remaining 29 athletes aren't necessarily medal hopefuls, they are still considered among the best in their fields.
"If we win a medal, of course that would make me happy, but if there are many athletes in the finals that means Israeli sports has advanced a considerable amount," Israel Olympic Committee chairman Zvi Varshaviak told The Jerusalem Post before he left for Sydney. "Fourth place is still fourth best in the world. Even 10th in the world is great. Anyone who gets to the top 10 is a big hero in my eyes, even if it doesn't put [his or her] face on the cover of a cereal box."
Nahum is not a medal contender, but that doesn't seem to bother him.
"My main goal is to first qualify for the final, before thinking of a medal," said the triple jumper, who missed the finals in his first two trips to the Olympics in 1992 and '96.
"The Olympics are different than any other event," he said. "I think the experience I have [from being there twice] should be on my side this time."
Nahum's fellow track and field teammates, Kfir Golan, 26; Alex Pork homovsky, 28; Tommy Kafri, 23; Gideon Yablonka, 22, and alternate runner Micky Bar-Yehoshua, 29, are hoping to break the national record for the 4x100m relay event and get into the finals.
"We expect to get to the semifinals, but we really want to make it into the finals," said Yablonka, who was a member of the Israeli relay team that finished ninth at the 1999 World Athletics Championships.
Even though the finals are to take place on Rosh Hashana, Nahum doesn't think the holiday should stop the athletes from competing. "It's not against the law [to compete on Rosh Hashana]," he explained. "I think for a few days in the year it is understandable that Israel won't take part in events... but I don't think Rosh Hashana should be one of them."
Nahum cited Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars and Yom Kippur as the only days on which competition should be banned. "Otherwise there would be so many days in the year that we wouldn't be able to compete," he said.
Rhythmic gymnast Or Tokayev isn't fooling herself about a medal either.
Instead, she's aiming for a more realistic - but still Herculean - top 10 finish.
"It's very exciting to be going to the Olympics," said the 20-year-old, a week before she and her coach, Natalya Usmolov, left for Australia.
"I don't think we'll get a medal, we're hoping to finish in the top 10. That would be high for Israel. We'd like to keep our strong standing at 12th," said Usmolov.
Tokayev, who finished seventh in the ribbon event at the World Championships in October 1999, has been doing rhythmic gymnastics since she was five years old. She said representing Israel in the Olympics is fulfilling a dream. And she hopes, despite the fact that gymnastics are not one of Israel's key sports, that "people will be watching."
Munich and beyond
Israel sent its first delegation to the Helsinki Games of 1952, and the nascent nation put itself on the sports map with a laudable effort by springboard diver Yoav Ra'anan, who finished in ninth place.
Israeli Olympians struggled in the years following, making no headlines until 1972, when tragedy struck. Lamentably the Munich Olympics will always be known for the massacre which took place in its Olympic Village.
Eleven members of the Israeli delegation were murdered by Palestinian terrorists in what has been described as the greatest disaster in Olympic annals.
The infamy grew when the world was confronted by the indifference of IOC head Avery Brundage, who let the games go on while the athletes were held hostage. Only an international outcry brought the Games to a halt, but even that for just one day.
Amid much controversy, the Sydney Games organizers have rejected the proposal to have a moment of silence during the opening ceremony today, saying such a memorial is considered a political act.
"It's a shame [the Olympics officials won't] commemorate the Munich massacre," Nahum told the Post. "At all of the Olympic Games, there should be an event to remember the tragedy... it's not something insignificant. In games of friendship, when something like this happens, you should always remember it, especially for the next generation."
The Sydney Games, on the other hand, do have a stainless-steel plaque bearing the names of the 11 murdered athletes on display just outside the main Olympic stadium. "It's the first time," said Nahum. "People can't miss it. This is something the Jewish community did."
Despite the Munich tragedy, Israel returned to the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal. By now, the national team had moved up three spots to a sixth place finish in the 100m hurdles, with Esther Roth-Shachamarov clinching the best national track result to date. When flying Dutchmen Yoel Sela and Eldad Amir landed in fourth place at Seoul in 1988, despite forfeiting a race held on Yom Kippur, Israel's medal hopes seemed suddenly attainable.
Israel's medal winners
And then came judoka Yael Arad.
Now a coach with this year's delegation, Arad holds the honor of being Israel's first medal winner in an Olympic event, capturing the silver medal in the under-61 kg. judo competition.
The then 25-year-old dedicated her 1992 silver medal to the Munich dead. "The massacre is always on my mind," said Arad hours before she left for Sydney two weeks ago. "I think it is on everyone's minds. It's always in the air."
At the same Barcelona Games, Oren Smadja, then 22, won Israel's second medal - taking bronze in the under 78-kg. judo competition - the day after Arad. Mistral sailboarder Gal Friedman, then 21, brought home another bronze medal in the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Arad, who retired in 1996 after finishing fifth in the Atlanta Olympics, knows all about the pressure under which athletes labor, as well as the excitement they feel at the Games. While the former competitor is now returning as a coach, she said the heat is still on.
"It is very exciting... but it is also very different," said Arad. "[This time] I'm responsible for someone else... but it feels good."
Asked if first-time Olympian Orit Bar-On, 24, feels overshadowed by Arad's successes, her coach responded with a resounding, 'no.'
"[Bar-On] is her own person," said Arad of the 57 kg. class Bar-On. "She's strong, she's very technical, and she's smart. You can't compare us."
She added: "[Bar-On] feels very comfortable with me as her coach and we get along well."
Nahum is also a returning veteran. "I'm even more excited than the other times," he said. "I'm captain of the team now, and it's probably my last Olympics. There's a lot of excitement going on."
Prizes galore
Sailboarder Amit Inbar, pole vaulter Danny Krasnov, kayaker Lior Carmi, swimmers Orbach and Bruck, and sailors Kedmi and Fabrikant have also felt the pressure of the world's most hyped sporting event before.
Krasnov, 30, came tantalizingly close to Olympic medals in both 1992 and 1996 when he reached the finals, but fell short of the prize.
Carmi, 24, reached the semifinals of the K1 500m event at the 1996 Olympics. In the last year, she has finished fifth and sixth in European championship races.
Orbach and Bruck, 23 and 28 respectively, were members of the Israeli 4x100 meter medley team which reached the Olympic final in Atlanta in 1996. In 1998, Orbach became the first sabra to win a medal in a major swimming championship when he took the silver in the European championships. Meantime, back in 1994, Bruck became the first Israeli to reach a world championship final.
And while Kedmi, 23, and Fabrikant, 25, failed to impress in the last Olympics, the women's double-handed dinghy duo slotted fourth place finishes in the 1999 world championships in Australia and at the 2000 European championships in Italy.
Arad is confident that the returning athletes, mixed with the first-timers, will do Israel proud. "I think the Israeli team as a whole will bring back some medals," she said. "It's a strong team."
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