Swimming with the current at the Maccabiah Games

July 7, 2009 - 8:50 AM by David

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat (right) steals Jason Lezak's official Maccabiah Games t-shirt from him at a ceremony in Jerusalem this week. (AP)

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat (right) steals Jason Lezak's official Maccabiah Games t-shirt from him at a ceremony in Jerusalem this week. (AP)

Shattering the myth that Jews aren’t good athletes (except for my cousin Moshe who reinforces the myth), next week over 5,000 Jewish athletes – yes, the words go together – will converge in Israel to join the 2,000 Team Israel participants for the The Maccabiah Games.
The 10-day competition, held every four years, is touted as the third largest sporting event in the world, and the opening ceremony will take place on July 13th at Ramat Gan stadium.

Some of the visiting athletes are already arriving in the country, including five-time American Olympic medalist, swimmer Jason Lezak from California.

Lezak, on his first visit to Israel, forfeited his spot on the United States’ World Championships team to participate in the Maccabiah, whose swimming competitions will be held at the Wingate Institute from July 19-22.

“I’ve gotten to the point in my career where I thought this was the right opportunity at the right time,” Lezak told journalists at Kfar Maccabiah in Ramat Gan. “I’ve been to the World Championships numerous amounts of times, and I thought this was a good opportunity to not only be in a competitive swimming event, but to have the whole experience.”

Lezak cemented his place in history at the Beijing Olympics when he came from a full body length behind French swimmer Alain Bernard in the anchor leg of the 400 meter freestyle relay to win gold for the US and ensure Michael Phelps was on course for a record eight golds.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Lezak spoke highly of Israeli swimmers

“When I was younger, I would see maybe one or two fast Israeli swimmers at competitions, and now we’re seeing more of them,” Lezak said. “Some of them actually come to the United States to train. They definitely are improving and they definitely can get faster. How long it takes for them to get into the finals I don’t know, but it will happen, I’m pretty confident in that.”

Israelis made an impressive showing at last summer’s Olympic Games, with Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or reaching the semifinals in the 200m free and Guy Barnea qualifying for the semi of the 100m backstroke.

In March Gal Nevo became the first Israeli in 20 years to win a medal at the NCAA swimming championships when he came second in the 440m individual medley while swimming for Georgia Tech, six months after reaching the semifinals of the 200-IM in Beijing.

And on Sunday Alon Mandel broke the Israeli record for the 50m butterfly, swimming in a time of 24.27 seconds to qualify for the semifinals at the Universidade in Belgrade.

So, it may only be a matter of time until we develop our own Phelps or Lezak. And next week’s Maccabiah Games will go a long way toward achieving that goal. Go Jewish athletes!

Tags: , , , • Category: General, Life, Sports, coexistence 

Comments

2 Comments on Swimming with the current at the Maccabiah Games

  1. David-Joe on Wed, Jul 8th 2009 1:11 AM

    2. That is a very diaspora way of viewing anything – “Jews not beiing good athletes”. And repeating it even humorously is pathetic.

    Given that Jews are around 14 million out of billions of others in the world it is remarkable that Jews even feature as top sports people, but they have and they do.

    Heard of Mark Spitz? Until his medal count was beaten last year nobody had ever won more gold medals in swimming.

    At the highest level of motor racing, formula 1, that decides the world racing driver champion in 17 races in 16 countries each year, in the past 30 years, Jody Scheckter of South Africa was the 1979 world champion with Ferrari – and his was the last title that team managed to win for 20 years.

    He also won the European allround sports contest against olympic athletes THREE times.

    Then there was Peter Revson – a son of the family that was co-founder of Revlon cosmetics – who was one of the top 5 drivers in the world.

    And French formula 1 driver Francois Cevert – at the tinme Frances top racing driver – whose birth name was Goldberg – but to save his life in 1944 in France……..

    So next time anyone has that Diaspora mindset about Jewish athletes remember it is not quantity but quality that counts.

    Not good athletes indeed!!!!

    And – Israelis has a very limited mindset about sports. So include ALL Jews!

  2. Alan Abbey on Wed, Jul 8th 2009 1:35 PM

    3. A Maccabiah athlete on his FB page says that in advance of its opening ceremony, the Maccabiah organizers tells 1/2 of athletes they can’t march into the stadium because the spectators will find it boring. What kind of @#$%! is that? That’s why people COME to the Opening – to see friends and family. How many people marched in Beijing? 10,000? 2 hours? Not one second of it was boring. Typical Israeli ridiculousness. What’s with the Maccabiah organizers? There may be a story in Haaretz about it….Oppose the dumb decision.

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