They are young and young, with a more or less bright future and especially with very few opportunities to prove themselves in the pool of the greats, but it seems that on Yom Kippur one of the unofficial laws was broken when three Israeli tennis players and two cyclists took part in official competitions.
Cyclist Itamar Einhorn, who rides for the senior Israel Startup Nation group competing in the World Tour, participated in the opening section of the Slovenia Tour yesterday and even finished in sixth place and was very close to a huge sensation, on one of the holy days of Judaism.
Along with Einhorn also competes Yuval Ben Moshe Hatzair, who rides for the Israel Cycling Academic team and was promoted to the senior team in the Slovak column.
Tomorrow (17:30, Eurosport) the second episode will take place.
Tennis players Nicole Hirin and Shavit Kimhi, together with tennis player Saar Simon, participated in the Future competition held in Johannesburg, South Africa, where prizes totaling NIS 25,000 were awarded.
Simon and Hirin recorded victories at the beginning of the future and advanced to the next stage, while Kimchi was eliminated.
The three are accompanied by coach Yoav Shev.
As mentioned, this is a move that would hardly have been accepted by Israel in the 1990s and certainly not before, when blue-and-white athletes proudly compete under the Israeli flag on Yom Kippur.
It should be noted that the Israel Startup Nation bicycle group is funded by businessmen Sylvan Adams and Roni Bar-On and is not officially supported by the state.
The tennis association said: "This is a personal competition of the players and not a representative team."