The Masters tournament in Jerusalem closed yesterday (Thursday) with great success for the Israeli delegation, which finished it with four medals in total, and once again it was proven how important hosting a major sports event in Israel is and how well our athletes know how to take full advantage of it.
The outstanding ones
This is the first time in history that Israel has won the gold medal, and the person responsible for this is Baruch Shamailov (up to 66 kg), who swept the audience and caused the national anthem to be played. and weight. This is the fourth time in his career that he has reached the podium at the Masters. The 28-year-old Shmailov's direct gain is a jump to the top three in the world ranking, and he will hope that the great end of the year will give him a lot of confidence for the new year and place him in the fight for a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
In general, this is Israel's best masters competition ever, with those responsible for it being Gili Sharr (63 kg), Peter Palachik (up to 100 kg) and Raz Hershko (over 78 kg). The latter two added to the balance sheet yesterday The medals in blue and white are the nice spoils, which ranked Israel in fifth place in the medal table.
the surprising ones
This year, many young people received subscriptions to the round competitions to prepare them for Los Angeles, 2028, and there are those who will try to jump on the flight to the French capital already.
One such person who seems to be going in the right direction is Guy Gurevich, bronze medalist from the European Championships under the age of 23. The young judoka (up to 90 kg) did not make it to the podium in Jerusalem and finished in seventh place, but with the battles he demonstrated and the good results he achieved during the year it seems that he will definitely There is a future.
Guy Gurevich, photo: Oren Aharoni
the disappointing ones
Former world champion Sagi Muki (up to 81 kg) would like to forget the last year, perhaps the worst of his career. Of the eight competitions in which he participated, he was ranked only twice (fifth in the Paris and Tel Aviv Grand Slams).
Also at the Masters in Jerusalem, he was stopped in the first fight after only 19 seconds, causing great disappointment among the crowd that came especially to cheer him on.
However, it was precisely in the team competition last year that Mookie showed that he still has something to give.
With less than 600 days left until the Olympics and possibly the end of his career, our senior judoka will not want his contribution to the sport to be remembered that way.
He should put aside all distractions and concentrate only on sports.
Mookie.
A big disappointment, photo: Oren Aharoni
improvement required
This category is dedicated to the union.
After they managed to bring the third most important judo event, which cost several millions, and despite the Hanukkah holiday, the audience did not fill the stands.
The record event had 3,000 fans in total, out of the 7,000 confirmed seats.
The union also wants to host the world championship in a few years, and apparently it will also take place in Jerusalem, after the president of the world union, Marius Wieser, was enthusiastic about the facility.
But they still have a lot of work ahead of them, including aggressive marketing, offering attractive prices and bringing in young athletes and schools in buses.
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