In recent weeks we have all experienced an unprecedented series of achievements in athletics, 5 medals at the European Championships, one of them gold, and a world youth champion - an unprecedented achievement by any standard.
The main question is how does a child become an athlete in Israel's Olympic squad?
In today's reality, parents aspire for their children to become professionals in soccer, basketball, and perhaps only in recent years in gymnastics and judo.
In most cases, children of former athletes who know the sport come to athletics.
This is where the journey of locating and searching for the next talent begins, bringing it to Lesing Afripa, Luna Chemtai in the hope that one day they will be Olympic athletes.
It starts with a physical education teacher, who identifies a child at the age of 11-12 and assesses that there may be potential here.
Sometimes it happens at a later age, like Yonatan Kapitolnik, the world youth champion in the high jump, but it is still the sharp eye of the physical education teacher that will decide.
This is where the sports association comes into the picture.
In hard, Sisyphean, continuous work first in general training.
Understanding whether the child will be sprinters, long-distance runners, high or distance jumpers, etc.
Sheetrock, photo: Maccabi Tel Aviv
After the decision, the professionalization and hard work will begin.
A sprinter will work with a sprint coach, who will build his bursting power and his style, in daily training and sometimes twice a day, in long and arduous training, fitness training, lifting weights, many repetitions of jumps and more running and more running.
If they decide that it is suitable for long runs, they will work according to the same procedure only in a different style.
At the same time, the child will continue to study at school, and will probably receive a symbolic reward that will make him behave with dignity.
Like this for several years.
Along the way, the athletes are also accompanied during their military service until they make their professional breakthrough and manage to achieve the required result to enter the Olympic squads.
From here his life will change.
He will enjoy a sports jacket that will only allow him to train and realize his professional potential for achievements that we all love to be proud of.
As you understand, the athlete must be very, very talented and show up really early.
Otherwise they have no chance of achieving.
Now think how many potential athletes in the State of Israel are lost because in Israel they are not engaged in locating the talents, do not know how to locate them and do not invest in cultivating those who have already been located.
We at Maccabi Tel Aviv are proud of our way, our investment and of course the many achievements of our athletes.
The author: CPA Doron Shitrok, former champion and champion of Israel in the 400 meter run, chairman of the Maccabi Tel Aviv Association
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