1 This has been a groundbreaking Olympic year for Israeli sports, with two prestigious gold medals in new and most important disciplines in the Olympic family.
In Tokyo 2020, the Israeli delegation presented its best achievements at the Olympics, in front of empty stands and with masks on their faces on the podium (unless you are called the Israeli judo team and you make a neighborhood in Tokyo as well).
Towards the end of the year, two important events took place, both related to women: Yael Arad was appointed chairman of the Israeli Olympic Committee, and Anastasia Gurbanko became the biggest promise ahead of Paris 2024.
Gorbanko.
The biggest promise for Paris, Photo: GettyImages
2 The 18-year-old swimmer's performance at the World Short Course Swimming Championships did not surprise anyone, but also set expectations in the average sports fan.
Can Israel break another glass ceiling with a medal in one of the two most prestigious disciplines at the Olympics?
The past civil year gives a feeling that it is.
If they do not destroy her, if they work with her properly, if they listen to her, because she sometimes knows best for her.
This time, when the public eye has already opened and will follow it closely, we will have to see if we have another Yishai Uliel here or if he really is an athlete of a generation.
Artium Dolgofiat.
Soon also on the big screen, Photo: REUTERS
3 If you dwell for a moment on the medals, it seems like the days when Olympic success would have translated directly into wide-ranging economic success are over: Sagi Muki with another disappointing competition and with a medal in the team competition holds the most gold-sponsored sponsor in gymnastics, Artium Dolgofiat.
He is also set to star in an international TV series.
Dolgofiat, who is getting used very quickly to life in citizenship on the way to more Olympic Games and is already aiming for another medal (while judo is stuck in tic-tac-toe), proves that in Israel people love sports, but mostly love a good story and the neighbor's child opposite.
What to do that a gold medal in the most prestigious profession there is not really enough.
Samberg is celebrating.
Should target the young audience, Photo: Reuters
Avishag Samberg, a bronze medalist who is supposed to target a young audience with a refreshing appearance, strong kicks and a natural niceness, does not star on any cereal packaging.
Maybe it's the corona that has emptied everyone's pockets, maybe the Israeli public is interested in its Olympic stars once every four years, no more than that.
And again the question arises: if these games were not held in the year of Corona, how would the medals be perceived by the public and by the advertisers?
At the moment they are already a distant memory that appears only in the summaries of the year, and later in trivia questions.
Linoy Ashram with the Gold Medal from Tokyo 2020, Photo: Alan Shiver
4 The chairman of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, could not have predicted the amount of storms that would meet him during his term: the corona, the Sino-US war, the doping affair in the Russian sports, the rape affair in the American gymnastics team, and what not.
Under pressure, Bach made one dramatic decision, which might be the difference between a TLS and a TASH, or vice versa: to give the two countries the Olympic Games in advance: to Paris in 2024 and to Los Angeles in 2028.
This made it impossible to postpone Tokyo, the games were held without an audience, looked bad on TV - and harassed the locals.
It is doubtful whether these games will be remembered at all, unless of course you live in ... Israel.
Thomas Bach.
Too many storms, Photo: EPA
5 If we linger for a moment on the international angle, then the upcoming Winter Games in Beijing next month are another fiasco in Bach's time.
The International Olympic Committee, which reacted slowly and awkwardly to the disappearance of the Feng Shui athlete in a country that is supposed to host international games, was perceived by Western eyes as doing everything to promote and caress the Chinese - just do not get upset, even when the world is attacked by the virus.
The sweeping consensus in the Western world and in the international media is that 2022 will be the year of the Chinese: the Winter Games, the Universiade and the Asian Games - all on state land that gave birth to the corona and sportsmanship just because it wanted to.
Members of the Israeli judo delegation celebrate the group bronze, Photo: Reuters
Russia, on the other hand, sees itself as a victim in the face of the fact that the Americans have been given a sweeping discount on gymnastics rape - and are also receiving an award in the form of entering the Los Angeles Olympics, instead of lifting weights and boxing identified with the Eastern Bloc.
If everyone has a critique of Bach, maybe he is still doing something right, but on the other hand he can get into the history books in a way no one has planned for the nice German, who has been running two Olympic Games within the biggest epidemic of the last hundred years.
Who can guarantee what will be in Paris 2024?
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