Olympic medalist Uri Sasson retires from judo (Photo: Niv Aharonson, Editing: Nir Chen)
Moshe Ponti boarded the bus to the competition hall in Doha, Qatar on Sunday. It was the last day of the 2023 World Judo Championships and he already had three medals around his neck. A record achievement at the World Championships for Israel in a sport he has been managing for years. The athletes never returned with three medals from one competition. It always ends with one medal. This was also the case at the previous World Championships held in Tashkent at the end of 2022.
As in the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Israel returned in Uzbekistan with a bronze medal from the team competition. The one that creates a mix of the women and men for a joint day of competition. Although in the capital of Japan this medal broke a bad week in the singles competition two years ago and brought judo proud home, and even at the previous World Championships, Israel knew how to finish on the podium in the team, Ponti gave up the joint competition in advance and still has another day left in Qatar to watch the other teams. "It was Oren and Shani's request," he said yesterday of his coaches Smadja and Hershko. "They wanted to go to this championship focused on individuals and not competing on my team and I agreed. I got what they asked for and they proved them right. We gave up on the team in advance even though we had good successes and a lot of pride, but here we are coming back from another world championship with achievements, this time with the gold of Inbar Lanir and two silver medals of Raz Hershko and Peter Palchik. Go into the medal table from here and understand where we are located."
Surprise? It depends if who you ask. Inbar Lanir (Photo by Getty Images, KARIM JAAFAR/AFP)
So I really went in and found out Ponti was right. After Japan and France, the traditional judo powers, and Georgia, which immediately followed them in third place, Ponti, his judokas and the national coaches will sit tomorrow for a concluding and mostly winning press conference at the Shlomo Hall in Tel Aviv, in fourth place in the table of achievements from the championship that ended. The three medals, the gold at the top, as well as the 5th and 7th places that enter the final table gave rise to the most successful World Judo Championships Israel has ever had.
This championship, like many major tournaments, did not start well. The days of the competition always begin with the lower weights and each day rise to the higher weight category and Israel did not have any successes at first. Until Friday it didn't work, but before Shabbat began and against the background of such a lax security situation, good news came again from judo when Lanir won gold and Falchik bronze. "Amber didn't surprise me at all," Ponti analyzed yesterday. "She hadn't won gold before, but her competitions were mostly very good and she was on the podium. I expected her to be here on the podium as well and I believed she could win gold. She made it big."
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Israel is on the side of the greatest powers. Moshe Fenty (Photo: Shlomi Gabay)
A world championship does not fall short of its difficulty level from the Olympics. It may not be in the profile of the Olympic Games held once every four years and their prestige is the pinnacle for the Olympic athlete, but from a professional perspective there is a big difference that raises the prestige of the World Championships even more. Unlike the Olympic Games, where each country can send one representative to each weight category, to the World Championships you can send two, which allows, for example, a superpower like Japan to take advantage of its depth and send more than one judoka. "We're in very good shape," Ponti says. "We are a year away from the Olympic Games in Paris and I am very pleased with how our team looks. We have a lot of expectations."
But not everything is rosy. Uri Sasson, who brought a bronze medal from Rio in 2016 and was part of the team bronze from Tokyo, retired, leaving the freeweight of over 100 kg without a quality competitor. Sagi Muki, himself a former world champion, will turn 31 the day after tomorrow and age is taking its course, and weighing up to 73 kilograms, Tohar Butbul is carrying a long injury due to which he has been inactive for a long time. "I'm optimistic," Ponti insists. "And you know me, I'm also realistic. I was right in my assessment and we came back with three medals from Qatar at a world championship, which we never did."
"There are a lot of expectations." Peter Palchik (Photo by Getty Images, KARIM JAAFAR/AFP)
Ponti has a lot of hopes and rightly so, first because for women the feeling is that we are really at the peak. Raz Hershko at the open weight of 78 kg and above won bronze and took first place in the world ranking table. She is now a medal candidate in every competition. Lanier brought gold in the lighter category, but in many competitions since the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Timna Nelson Levy, Gili Sharir and Gefen Primo have also picked up prestigious medals. In almost every women's category there is someone who can catch a big day and take a medal, no matter if it's just a Grand Prix or a World Championship.
The Olympic sports in Israel will probably not be able to surpass the popular soccer and basketball, but the war for existence is not really against the leading team sports. The Olympic associations have to fight for their place against each other, and in this covert and sometimes overt war, the Judo Association will always want to win. The Gymnastics Association brought immense respect from Tokyo with the two gold medals of Linoy Ashram and Artyom Dolgopiat, the Swimming Association is constantly advancing and has aces like Anastasia Gorbenko and both the Sailing Association and the Athletics Association provide impressive achievements. And yet the facts are that year after year, competition after competition, there are receipts from the mat and the judokas do not get off the podium. "Whoever eulogizes us regularly, let him eat his heart," they say around the union. "There are a few who don't protest and are dying for judo to crash, but judo is as strong as ever and continues to bring great achievements."
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- Inbar Lanir
- Raz Hershko
- Peter Palchik