Maccabiah Games
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The Maccabiah Games is an international Jewish athletic event similar to the Olympics. The Maccabiah is held in Israel every four years under the auspices of the Maccabi Federation, a part of the Maccabi World Union. [1] It is sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee and World Federation of Sports. The Maccabiah Games, ranking among the five largest sports gatherings in the world (in number of participants), are considered Regional Games by the International Olympic Committee.
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[edit] History
Originally conceived by Yosef Yekutieli, a 15-year-old inspired by the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games, the Games were first held in 1932 after 14 years of development by Yekutieli and the Jewish National Fund. The first Games were opened by Tel Aviv Mayor Meir Dizengoff, with almost 400 athletes from 18 countries participating, including over 60 athletes from Arab countries such as Syria and Egypt.
Since 1932, the Games have been held roughly every four years. The third Maccabiah Games, scheduled for 1938, was delayed until 1950 due to the rise of Nazism in Europe and the outbreak of the Second World War.
The Maccabiah Games have been a quadrennial event since 1957. See Maccabiah Games - Squash [1]
Among the Olympic gold medalists, world champions, and world record holders who have competed in the Maccabiah Games are Mark Spitz and Marilyn Ramenofsky (swimming); Debbie Lipman (diving); Mitch Gaylord, Abie Grossfeld, and Agnes Keleti (gymnastics); Larry Brown, Ernie Grunfeld, Danny Schayes, (coaches) Nat Holman and Dolph Schayes (basketball); Carina Benninga (field hockey); Lillian Copeland, Gerald Ashworth, and Gary Gubner (track and field); Angela Buxton, Julie Heldman, Allen Fox, and Dick Savitt (tennis); Angelica Rozeanu (table tennis); Isaac Berger and Frank Spellman (weightlifting); and Fred Oberlander and Henry Wittenberg (wrestling).[2]
[edit] Tragedy at the 15th Maccabiah Games
The 15th Maccabiah in 1997 had more than 5,000 athletes from 53 countries competing in 36 sports.
New sports for the Games included beach volleyball, ice hockey, and taekwondo. 1992 Olympian Tamara Levinson earned 5 golds in rhythmic gymnastics.
The Games were marred by the collapse of a bridge, causing some athletes on the bridge who were marching into the Ramat Gan Stadium in Tel Aviv for the Opening Ceremony to fall into the highly-polluted Yarkon River.
Four Australians, Greg Small, Elizabeth Sawicki, Yetty Bennett, and Warren Zines, were killed when the bridge collapsed. Scores more were injured.
After the accident, both the Opening Ceremony and the Games themselves continued——albeit with lower enthusiasm——with spectators in the stadium given an announcement that the bridge had collapsed and at least one Australian had been killed.
Many inquests were completed into the collapse of the bridge by both Israeli and Australian authorities.
[edit] 16th Maccabiah Games
For the 2001 Games, the Opening Ceremony was held in Jerusalem at Teddy Stadium, while the re-building process of the collapsed bridge and investigations into the collapse continued.
It is considered a 'smaller games' for three reasons: attendance was significantly lower, particularly from the Australians (it sent only about 170 athletes, compared with around 400 in 1997); it was run at the height of the Second Intifada (and straight after the infamous Dolphinarium bombing—the largest of the Intifada—that killed 21 Israelis, mostly high school students); and not all wounds had been healed after the collapse of the bridge.
The 16th Maccabiah attracted more than 2,200 athletes from 46 countries.
The 2001 games opened with a sellout crowd of more than 25,000 spectators. The Games saw the addition of juniors futsal and girls’ soccer, as well as the return of women’s basketball. US Olympic swimming gold medallist and former world record holder, Lenny Krayzelburg, earned gold and set a new Maccabiah record in the 100-meter backstroke. Russian Olympic fencing gold medalists Sergei Scharikov and Maria Mazina, coached by former Soviet Olympic fencing gold medalist Mark Rakita, won Maccabiah gold medals.
[edit] 17th Maccabiah Games
The 2005 Maccabiah Games were considered a success. Attendance was back up, and three out of four families of those who died in the 1997 bridge collapse attended.
It attracted the largest attendance of any Maccabiah Games to date, including more than 900 representatives from the United States, almost 500 from Australia, and more than 2,000 from Israel, bringing the total participants to more than 7,700.
Israel romped home at the head of the winners' table with 227 gold medals. The United States was a distant second with 71 gold medals, while Russia came in third with 15.
[edit] World Maccabi bodies
Many Jewish schools from all over the world send students who are particularly talented in a sport to Israel to participate in the games.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ The Maccabi movement, started in 1895 and named after Judah Maccabee, is an international Jewish sports, cultural, social, and educational organization,
[edit] External link
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