Israeli Olympians earn seven medals
Israel’s rhythmic gymnastics team won the silver medal in the all-around team competition last weekend, earning Israel’s seventh medal at the Paris Olympics.
The group, which is captained by Romi Paritzki and includes Ofir Shaham, Diana Svertsov, Adar Friedmann, and Shani Bakanov, finished with a combined score of 68.850, behind gold medal-winning China’s 69.800. Italy won the bronze.
The medal was Israel’s seventh at the Paris Games — its most ever at a single Olympics — and its fifth silver. Saturday’s win was Israel’s first medal in the team competition.
Israel has earned a total of 20 Olympic medals — each appreciated by Israelis who remember the decades it took to win its first. Not until the 1992 Barcelona games, 40 years after Israelis first competed in the 1952 Helsinki games, did Israel athletes first bring home medals.
The rhythmic team entered Paris with high expectations. The group won its first gold medals at the 2023 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships and had also won gold at the 2022 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, hosted in Tel Aviv.
Gilad Lustig, the secretary general of Israel’s Olympic committee, drew a connection between Israel winning its seventh medal and the symbolism of October 7, the date of Hamas’s surprise attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and launched the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“It’s the most important closing of the circle, after what they tried to do to us on Oct. 7,” Lustig told Haaretz. “We are here, on the map.
“This is our victory over what happened on October 7,” Lustig continued. “From the bottom of our hearts, from every team of ours, from all the people that accompanied this. The feeling of our mission is much greater, and we can seal it with the story of the seven medals. There is nothing more symbolic than that.”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
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