Throughout her life, Simona Goren was an athletic, true sports patient.
One that is good at everything - in table tennis, crossfit, rollerblades, basketball or just intense training in the gym.
Nothing, until four years ago, prepared her for the day when, at the age of 39, she will be part of Israel's Olympic rowing quartet, which will compete in the Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
Simona and her friends, along with 11 other teams, will cover two kilometers and try to do so as fast as possible to advance to the finals, from which the medals will also come out.
"I did not know, I did not hear, I did not even link competitive sports to the possibility that I would participate as a paddler in disabled sports," she says when we meet at the rowing club where she trains, on the banks of the Yarkon River in north Tel Aviv. Three marathons - in Tel Aviv, Amsterdam and the new route at the Dead Sea. Her time is three and a half hours, which also led her to win the Israeli Visually Impaired Championship. Then Limor Goldberg from the Disabled Sports Association met her, and offered her to join the Paralympic sports, as a paddler. In her quick instinct, Simona refused: "I thought to myself it was not right for me," she recalls, "after all these years, getting into a new industry at age 35 and starting over? Didn't fit. Beyond that I am one who needs solid ground, not water. I refused."
In the meantime she went through long to short runs, and in one of those 1,500 meters, she was injured: "This transition changes the pace and intensity, and it also increases the range of injuries. I suffered a stress crisis, and as an athlete I had a hard time sitting at home for four months without action. "The matter of rowing came up again, and I said it might be worth checking it out. I tried, at first twice a week."
Aviad Pohorils in conversation with Simona Goren.
Amazing story, Udi quote
Perhaps the fact that no one pressured her allowed her a comfortable and pleasant acquaintance with the industry.
In any case, she had nothing else to do, but it took her a while to fall in love with the new occupation: "What attracted me was the competitiveness. I arrived in February, and in May I was already in competition in Italy. I was immature, but I learned the technique. "What needed to be done was quick. It was especially important to pick up a technique of working with a rowing quartet. The rhythm, the style, the breaths. At first they kept me going, and in the end it connected."
At first there were six rowers on the team, until a final quartet was formed.
The team also includes her brother Klein, who was blinded by a bomb while fighting in the tunnels in Gaza, Barak Hatzor, who overturned in his military service with a jeep, and Michal Feinblatt, a former Jewish without a disability, who was wounded in the shoulder and forced to move to Paralympic sports.
Also sitting in the boat is Marlina Miller, the helmsman who holds the competition, speed and distance data.
The competition is defined as academic rowing, with the source taken from the bloody struggles between Oxford and Cambridge universities.
In the rowing competitions in Tokyo there are assignments for singles, doubles, quartets and eights.
Israel has two individual competitors - Moran Samuel and Shmulik Daniel - and Simona's quartet, which achieved the Olympic criteria at the 2019 World Championships in Austria, where the team finished in sixth place.
The postponement of the games of the year discouraged her: "We prepared for Tokyo with a lot of energy and stuck to a training program. In terms of organization, we booked plane tickets with rooms in Tokyo, including my husband and daughters. Everything was already in order - until everything stopped."
Conducting this operation, and going out with them to Tokyo, is 49-year-old Reuven Magnaji, a certified rowers who has competed in three Olympics (Beijing, London and Rio), doubles and quartet.
In 2002, Magnaji was severely wounded in the leg by terrorists during Operation Defensive Shield in the Jenin refugee camp.
During that battle, after being wounded, he waited for evacuation.
At one point the fighting escalated and became complicated, and the evacuation was delayed.
When he heard the terrorists approaching his hiding area - he pulled a grenade from his vest, and waited.
As they walked away, with his last strength he restored the guard with his teeth, and waited another hour until he was rescued.
Even the bitch is called Tokyo
Goren is 39 years old, married to Guy and mother to Liel (10), Noya (7) and Shiraz (3).
The couple recently adopted a bitch and named her "Tokyo" in honor of the upcoming event.
At the age of 8 she immigrated from Ukraine, and her family settled in Ramla.
She did a bachelor’s and master’s degree in nutrition, and is currently a clinical dietitian working as a senior nutritionist at Medix.
She grew up with a visually impaired mother who suffered from RP syndrome, which causes gradual loss of vision, and in many cases complete blindness, as in the case of the mother.
Simona says: "At the age of 27, I was not so interested in whether my mother's illness would affect me either. I did not know anyone else in my family who had it, and I also did a test and did not see anything unusual."
One day, after suffering from a lump in her eye, she went to the doctor.
The doctor was sure of the symptoms she saw, and sent her for examination.
The result was clear: Simona has RP, which was genetically inherited from her mother.
Photo: Udi Citation,
Following the diagnosis, Goren experienced a crisis that was not simple at all.
"I experienced it through my mother and her deterioration," she recalls, "it occurred to me that my life trajectory was going to be like hers, and I really did not want that. My mother closed down, did not want a guide dog and was greatly reduced in her life."
The difficult diagnosis found her while she was still single, and this week she laughed during the interview when she said she managed to "catch" her husband Guy in time.
On the disease, she says: "The point here is that RP has no clear outline, and people with the disease experience it differently. Some are in rapid blindness, and some are in an ongoing process. Some are left with visual remnants."
What they all have in common is that over time the field of vision shrinks, night vision is lost, and vision is just like peeking through a straw or tube.
When I look at Simona during the interview, she does not see in her eyes a sign that betrays her illness.
When her head is turned towards me she sees me well, but you will not see who is sitting next to me.
Its field of vision today covers 20 percent, and only after a decade are there genetic diagnoses.
Right now, other than participating in research, there is not much to do.
"Unlike instant blindness, in my situation there is a kind of preparation for it, a mental preparation for me to go completely blind or stay sighted," she says. "I live and try to take advantage of quality time with my girls, which I may not be able to do later. For example, I can not really go with them to the pool, because even if I am close to one of the girls - the other is out of my sight. It is stressful."
And what do your girls say about your limitation?
"They were born into it, and that's it. They hold my hand in the dark, but the real crisis was when they took my driver's license. There was a situation where a child went down the road and I didn't see him, and it was really dangerous. I got a blind certificate, and some of my independence was taken from me." .
The physical limitations, and on the other hand the desire to stay close to the park and the Yarkon, led to a family decision to live in the Hadar Yosef neighborhood.
The athletics stadium, the Medix where she works - they are all just across the road.
It was important for Simona and Guy to live in the neighborhood with community centers, schools and close circles, accessible and relevant to everyone's occupation. And what is important is to maintain balance and perfect coordination within the crew, so that the boat does not capsize.
Exercising at the height of the heat, on purpose
Towards Tokyo, the group made a training camp on the Sea of Galilee, during peak hours, and tried to reach conditions most similar to those currently prevailing in Tokyo. At the optimal level, Simona talks about the spirit of the face that will push them. As for the odds, the British are the best. They are followed by the Americans, Canadians, Australians, Brazilians, French, Ukrainians and Italians, who can be dealt with. Coach / manager Reuven Magnaji says that unlike artistic gymnastics, which is a sport decided by judges, rowing is a measurable profession, and in the end the athletes' familiar physiological data is what it is - and they will go into battle with it. With them they will feel the boat, the water and the paddle. The big task is to get a place in the final, where six teams will compete.
She has many more dreams to fulfill, to specialize in work and to be an athlete at the highest levels, even in Paris 2024. She left for Tokyo this week after a difficult operation with the girls.
Frida, caregiver A, caregiver B, grandparents, and of course Guy, who receives them at the end of the day, cooks and serves as a dog walker.
As we have seen with Artium Dolgofiat and Linoy Ashram, the great athletes cannot exist without a sponsor, and the one who supports Simona is a plastic crown company: "And they give me everything I need to be an athlete at the highest level. An accomplished athlete cannot achieve this without such support. They are deep in my heart."
How do you feel?
"I look at the day, and only then forward. To be the best and enjoy life. Everything else is less predictable."
Udi Sagi and Yiftach Sahar, co-CEOs of Keter: "For more than two years, Keter has accompanied and supported Simona Goren, along with a group of other inspiring Paralympic athletes, from the great importance we see in contributing to the community and doing a year of reality for the other. Values such as excellence, mutual respect and teamwork, which are engraved in our organizational vision, are refined in sports in general and Paralympic sports in particular. "
