Judo

Israel's judo team wins two medals on one day: joy and yet unspeakable heartache

Israel's judo team wins two medals on one day: joy and yet unspeakable heartache

PARIS – Thirty-two years ago, at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, a young Israeli, Yael Arad, won her nation’s first-ever medal in judo, a silver in the women’s under 61-kilo class. The very next day, in the men’s under-71 category, another young Israeli, Oren Smadja won a bronze.

The story of Israel at the Olympic Games, its hopes and dreams, particularly in the aftermath of 1972, is and forever will be intertwined with Yael Arad, who is far better known, because history summoned her first, but also Oren Smadja.

On Thursday, amid so much in our world that makes being Israeli at the Olympics extraordinary, with all that word conveys, destiny called again, a mixture of elation and unspeakable heartache as a new generation of Israeli judo players for the first time in that nation’s history won two medals on the same day – Arad now both president of the Israeli Olympic Committee and a member of the International Olympic Committee, Smadja the men’s national team coach.

Again the soul poet Rodney King: can't we get along? Algerian judo player doesn't show against Israeli

Again the soul poet Rodney King: can't we get along? Algerian judo player doesn't show against Israeli

PARIS – Messaoud Redouane Dris of Algeria is the No. 14-ranked fighter in judo’s men’s under-73 kilo class. He’s the current African champion. A junior African champion. Last year, he took silver at the International Judo Federation Grand Prix in Zagreb, Croatia.  He is the gold medalist at the 2022 Mediterranean Games.

This is a guy who, one would think, by any measure would relish the chance to get on the tatami at his first – very first – Olympic Games.

But no.

‘What’s this?’ — it’s the hope of sport

‘What’s this?’ — it’s the hope of sport

DOHA, Qatar — As she came off the tatami in delighted shock at what she had just done, Inbar Lanir of Israel looked at her coach, Shany Hershko, and said, “What’s this?”

Lanir had just thrown France’s Audrey Tcheuméo, the Rio 2016 Games silver medalist, to become the 2023 judo world champion in the women’s 78-kilo class. 

A few moments later, in this Arab nation, they lifted the Israeli flag and played the Israeli anthem, Hatikva — it means “the hope” — and Lanir, alone at the top of the podium, wiped tears from her eyes. These were tears of joy. Of happiness. And wonder.

This is the hope of sport — that it can transcend political differences. Because when they played the anthem and lifted the flag, it was — normal. Everything was totally, completely normal. 

From 13 days in a boat to winning at a Grand Slam

From 13 days in a boat to winning at a Grand Slam

DÜSSELDORF, Germany — Latakia is Syria’s principal port, on the country’s western shoreline. Turkey is just to the north.

The war in Syria has been going on for nearly nine years already. Three years into the violence, in 2014, in Latakia, Tareq Jamal and his cousin, Najib, decided to risk it all. They made their way up the shoreline to Turkey, and from there into a wooden boat packed with people.

It took 13 days, across the Mediterranean Sea, to reach Italy. “BIg waves,” he recalled. “Women were crying.” He paused in telling the story. “We were almost to die.”

On Saturday, Tareq Jamal, representing what was called the International Refugee Team, not only competed at the Düsseldorf Grand Slam, he won a match. Ranked 429th in the world in the men’s 73-kilo category — to repeat, No. 429 — he defeated a competitor ranked No. 69 and made a solid case to go to the Olympic Games this summer in Tokyo.

Angelica Delgado and hope for USA judo

Angelica Delgado and hope for USA judo

DÜSSELDORF, Germany — Just moments before, Angelica Delgado — an American! — had won a bronze medal in the women’s under 52-kilo class, and convincingly at that, a no-doubt ippon, and now she was standing in the tunnel here at the ISS Dome, with her coach and the USA Judo high-performance director, and there were tears in her eyes, and these were tears of happiness and relief — and expectation, too.

“It feels really good to get a medal in a qualifying year,” the Tokyo Olympics just months away, the 29-year-old Delgado said.

She added, “To make a statement like this in a qualifying year means I know I can get a medal at the Olympics.”

She wiped away a tear. “I’m just really happy.”

Connecting, inspiring, making memories to make a difference

Connecting, inspiring, making memories to make a difference

TEL AVIV — Yanir Shvartz is 11 years old. He lives in a kibbutz in central Israel, called Nahsonim, that in 2018 had a population of 399. Yanir loves judo. His great hero is Sagi Muki, who in 2019 became the world champion in the men’s under 81-kilogram category.

World champion! An Israeli! 

To say that Yanir loves judo and Sagi Muki would probably be one of the great understatements, and in which order is uncertain, because it is the nature of things that 11-year-old boys and hero-worship tend to go hand in hand. “I like him so much,” Yanir, a little nervous, said. On the sidelines of the 2020 International Judo Federation season-opener here, the 2020 Tel Aviv Grand Prix, in a tent in which a food truck had been set up that was serving hamburgers good enough to have drawn a long, long line, Sagi Muki — himself! — could be found Thursday and Friday with a stack of pictures and a pen, there to sign and talk to all the boys and girls and moms and dads. And, of course, take pictures. Selfies? Sure.

Focus on Moshe Ponte: Israel's driving force in judo

Focus on Moshe Ponte: Israel's driving force in judo

TEL AVIV — In the fall of 2017, the Israeli judo team set out for Abu Dhabi, to take part in the International Judo Federation’s Grand Slam. To get there meant an unexpected and unexplained wait at the airport. The wait stretched to hours. 

Among the Israeli team, no one needed to recite the history of what is what in this part of the world. Everyone knew, and understood. How, though, in such a situation, one naturally filled with any number of anxieties, to keep everyone focused? Calm? Together? 

Moshe Ponte, president of the Israel Judo Association, was having nothing but focus. Concentrate on the competition, he kept saying, and indeed the clearance finally came through, the Israelis were allowed into the United Arab Emirates and, in a memorable scene, Tal Flicker won gold in the men’s under-66 category, singing the Israeli anthem — HaTikvah, or “The Hope” — on the stand even though organizers did not play it.

Recalling it all now, Peter Paltchik, the Israeli standout in the under 100-kilo category who in 2018 would win gold at the Abu Dhabi tour stop, said of Ponte, affectionately, “He is a bulldozer.”

Indeed, the 63-year-old Ponte is one of the leading personalities in world judo. 

On being Nadia: authentically herself in a world that loves her, and of course

On being Nadia: authentically herself in a world that loves her, and of course

MONTREAL — It was a hot and humid late afternoon 4th of July but no matter, because Nadia Comaneci was in town, and wherever Nadia Comaneci goes, there is light and love and joy, and people are drawn to her and she to them, and especially here in Montreal, because it was here, as a 14-year-old, way back in 1976, that she executed the Perfect 10, and nothing has been the same since, not gymnastics, not the Olympics and for sure not Nadia and the very many people who want to be around her.

Which is, truth be told, pretty much everyone.

Nadia was out for a brief stroll on what is now named Nadia Comaneci Plaza. Of course it is named Nadia Comaneci Plaza. She says now that she had no idea they were going to name it after her when they did so 18 or so months ago, and it was a huge honor because usually — in her telling — they only name things like plazas after people when such people are dead. 

Nadia is not only very much alive, she is a life force, and that is just one of the reasons people — in every country — want to be near, to feel what it must be like to be perfect, if even for a moment, because life is not perfect, as fate is glad to remind us all but, then again, as Nadia observes, if you work hard, maybe, just maybe, you, too, can be great, because everyone has it in them to be great. 

You know what great means? It hardly has to mean you are going to qualify for the Olympics, or even win a gold medal. Great means today is a little bit better in some way than yesterday, and by that same measure tomorrow is better than today. That for sure is great. Just ask Nadia.

Historic breakthrough: Iran judo to end boycott against Israel

Historic breakthrough: Iran judo to end boycott against Israel

For decades, Iran’s athletes have refused to compete against Israelis. No matter the sport, no matter the situation.  

In a historic breakthrough, on Saturday the International Judo Federation announced that for Iran’s judo athletes the boycotts would be no more.

Iran’s Olympic committee and its national judo federation, in a letter dated Thursday and made public Saturday, agreed to “fully respect the Olympic Charter and its non-discrimination principle.” 

In a statement posted on its website, the IJF said the letter came after talks that followed the “disturbing phenomenon” involving the “sudden ‘injury’ or failure of weigh-in of Iranian athletes,” a “phenomenon which is linked by many observers to the possible obligation of the given athletes to compete against certain countries.” 

The IJF, it said, “decided to step up in order to protect the right of athletes to fair competition.” 

Playing soon in Tel Aviv: an extraordinarily normal tour stop

Playing soon in Tel Aviv: an extraordinarily normal tour stop

The prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, has declared that the two Israeli swimmers who have applied for visas for the World Paralympic Swimming Championships scheduled for the island of Borneo this summer cannot compete there: “We will not allow them to enter. If they come, then it is an offense.”

Meanwhile, the International Judo Federation next week kicks off its 2019 world tour in Tel Aviv. It’s a big meet, a Grand Prix with more than 50 nations and over 400 athletes, as well as the start to a key season aiming toward the world championships in late August in Tokyo, at the legendary Nippon Budokan, site of the first Olympic judo tournament in 1964.

The contrast could not be more obvious, nor more vivid.

The contrast comes after developments in 2018 that again saw judo, under the steady direction of the IJF president, Marius Vizer, take a lead in doing what sport should be doing: make sure the door is open, the rules are equal and nobody gets turned away simply because of who they are or what the flag on his or her uniform looks like.