The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

The biggest Israeli victory of all: our messenger at the opening ceremony of the Olympics - Walla! Tokyo 2020 Olympics

2021-07-24T03:07:24.699Z


No medal won by Israel will match the exciting minute of the opening ceremony, in which a minute of silence was held in memory of the 11 murdered Munich 72. It was worth going through half a world for that. the first day


  • Tokyo 2020 Olympics

The biggest Israeli victory of all: our messenger at the opening ceremony of the Olympics

No medal won by Israel will match the exciting minute of the opening ceremony, in which a minute of silence was held in memory of the 11 murdered Munich 72. It was worth going through half a world for that. the first day

Tags

  • Tokyo 2020

  • 2021 Olympics

Yaniv Tuchman, our envoy to Tokyo

Friday, 23 July 2021, 21:34 Updated: 21:42

  • Share on Facebook

  • Share on WhatsApp

  • Share on general

  • Share on general

  • Share on Twitter

  • Share on Email

0 comments

  • Ted Lasso - Season 2, Jason Sodeikis

  • Sirin level

  • A tearful goat, a wedding at first sight

  • From the movie "One in the Heart"

  • Convicted Abd al-Salam Mufid al-Aissa and the deer he hunted

  • Titi and Rumi, Big Brother Summer 2021

  • Oja Pool Gif

  • Trailer for the movie "I'm Tonya"

  • From the movie Someone Will Love Someone

  • Hit and run, Moran Rosenblatt

  • A fire in a hexagonal Jewish forest reserve in July 2021

  • A wedding event at Barbie, Dudu Tessa shows up

Conversation by Yaniv Tuchman Walla Sport wrote with Ilana Romano Yosef Romano's widow from the victims of the massacre in Munich (Walla system!)

A lot of scripts ran in my head before the trip to Tokyo.

Have all the forms the Japanese requested been filled out?

Have the tracking apps they required been updated on the private mobile?

And what about the tests?

Shall we go negative?

Even before we landed in Tokyo, the feeling was that there was no more power to anything.

The Japanese sucked up all our strength.



Thoughts also wandered to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

How the hell do four hours of ceremony go by without a crowd in the stadium?

The fuel that drives the whole business is the audience.

How can one see 206 delegations, one after the other, without a cheering crowd in the stands passing the time and raising the thrill?

Festive ceremonies, by nature, saturated with speeches, acting and singing passages.

Nothing could have prepared us for this moment when we stood on the huge boards at the Olympic Stadium.

More on Walla!

NEWS

Going to be amazing: the motor sport event that awaits you on the holiday of Sukkot

To the full article

Then it happened, without any warning and with complete surprise, the memory of the loved ones alive and well.

Spitzer and Romano (Photo: Official Website, Israel Olympic Committee)

More on Walla!

sport

  • Osaka lit the Olympic torch: "I have no words to describe it"

  • The Israeli flag was hoisted in Tokyo: the 2020 Olympics officially launched

  • The 11th Massacre in Munich was first officially mentioned: "Can rest in their graves"

  • B-Cure Laser - Does It Really Help With Pain?

Five years ago in Rio they stood modestly and quietly at a ceremony held every Olympics in the Olympic Village in memory of the 11 victims of the Munich Olympics.

When Jordan Jerby and Uri Sasson won medals and were welcomed in the hotels in Rio, they were there just so as not to forget that there is a much bigger task than a medal for the Olympic Committee, for the State of Israel.

Just to mention what was supposed to be taken for granted.

Eleven athletes were killed when they came to compete in the Olympics.

How can one not find one minute within four hours of a ceremony to give them the honor?



When Romano and Spitzer landed here in Tokyo in the middle of the week, it was clear to them that after the opening ceremony, lectures and conversations with locals would surely await them to tell the stories they have been carrying for 49 years. On August 1, the regular ceremony was scheduled on the Olympic Committee's schedule, this time at the embassy because of the corona, and they were specially prepared for it. Then it happened, without any warning and with complete surprise, the memory of the loved ones alive and well. Ilana Romano and Anki Spitzer sat in the bleachers and the mind did not understand what the eyes saw. It finally happened. It took and was worth going through half a world to be with them on the exciting and special evening of their lives. The tears were not only in their eyes, but also in most of the Israelis who were with them in the stadium. Staff members, heads of the Israeli Olympic Committee, Israeli journalists. Everyone is familiar with the long struggle that made them and the families of those who perished in the country no longer believe it would happen. While other families sought to reconcile with their loved ones in their private and personal mourning, Romano and Spitzer kept fighting and they won.



After that gesture, after the obvious move that was late to come all these years, it no longer mattered what was happening on the grass of the Olympic Stadium.

Who goes up after whom, which delegation wears the coolest clothes and who is the athlete who will light the Olympic torch.

Every Israeli here at the Olympic Stadium has reached his catharsis, to the climactic moment, right at the beginning.

From here it was just a matter of passing time to the end.

Forever The Tokyo 2020 Olympics held in the summer of 2021 will be for the Israelis the Olympics in which the International Olympic Committee recognized and gave the respect due to athletes who were murdered for being Israelis and Jews at moments when they had to be in competitions or training preparations.

"Now they can finally rest in the graves," said Ilana Romano.

"I promised my daughters that it would happen again and they would know how to honor the memory of their father."

The ceremony was long and tiring.

Tomarkin with the flag (Photo: AP, Natacha Pisarenko)

A few hours earlier. The road to the Olympic Stadium on the streets of Tokyo was relatively busy even though the police evacuated the deputies. Powerful Tokyo. A metropolis of 37 million inhabitants, skyscrapers by the sea, formidable bridges alongside maintained lawns. A city that has everything from everything. The Japanese stood on the sidewalks and waved to strangers traveling in their buses. Most of them are so kind and pleasant. Trying to help with such bad English. As the buses marched toward the Olympic Stadium hundreds of Japanese stood with teary eyes that they could not enter the opening ceremony. A long fence separated them from the journalists from all over the world who marched towards the security checkpoint. As you got closer to the stadium you could also hear from its other side a huge demonstration of citizens opposing the holding of the games in Tokyo. They protested that instead of vaccinating the residents and eradicating the corona, the Japanese government agreed to host the Olympics and brought more people from all over the world to Tokyo with the danger of the virus continuing to spread. For long hours they were heard well outside the stadium.The silence and calm in which the ceremony took place, similar to Japanese culture, was violated by the shouts of the protesters from outside.



Without an audience in the stands singing the atmosphere and roaring parade of delegations felt a long boredom.

Yaakov Tomarkin and Hannah Knyazeva-Minenko led the Israeli delegation and were as excited as ever, but here it is over.

Even the athletes themselves had already found it difficult to stand on their feet after long hours and sat in several focal points on the surface so as not to load on their feet and back.

This is definitely not a simple story, certainly when in the coming days we have to compete.

The Olympic Committee needs to think of something else.

This ceremony must be shorter.



Tonight and tomorrow the games will officially begin.

The rainbow with me Monday has already started this morning, but the other 89 athletes sent by Israel to the competitions will enter the circle of games in the coming days.

In Rio, five years ago, tears of excitement came from the judo hall.

From there also came the achievements.

After this evening at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, something really unusual will have to happen for us to be equally excited here again.

  • Share on Facebook

  • Share on WhatsApp

  • Share on general

  • Share on general

  • Share on Twitter

  • Share on Email

0 comments

Source: walla

All news articles on 2021-07-24

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.