| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Competitor for the Israel | ||
| Asian Games | ||
| Gold | Bangkok 1970 | 100 meter hurdles |
| Gold | Bangkok 1970 | Pentathlon |
| Gold | Tehran 1974 | 100 meter race |
| Gold | Tehran 1974 | 200 meter race |
| Gold | Tehran 1974 | 100 meter hurdles |
| Silver | Bangkok 1970 | Long Jump |
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Competitor for the Israel | ||
| Maccabiah Games | ||
| Gold | 1969 Israel | Long Jump |
| Gold | 1973 Israel | 100 meter race |
| Gold | 1977 Israel | 100 meter hurdles |
| Gold | 1977 Israel | 200 meter race |
Esther Roth-Shachamarov (Hebrew: אסתר רוט-שחמורוב) (born April 16, 1952 in Tel Aviv) is a former Israeli track and field athlete. She specialized in the 100-meter hurdles and the 100-meter sprint.
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She once held simultanousely five Israeli national records. One of them is still a record and two others held for over 20 years.
Roth won five gold medals and one silver medal in two Asian Games. She won golds in 100m hurdles and pentathlon and a silver in long jump in 1970, and three golds, in 100 m, 200 m, and 100 m hurdles, in 1974.
At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Roth just barely missed qualifying for the final in the 100-meter sprint. She qualified for the 100-meter hurdles semifinal, but withdrew from the Games, together with the remaining members of the Israel Olympic team, after the murder of her longtime coach, Amitzur Shapira, and ten other members of the Israeli team, by Palestinian terrorists.
In 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Roth became the first ever Israeli athlete to reach the finals in any Olympic event, and she is still the only Israeli Olympic finalist in track events, when she finished 6th in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.04 seconds.[1]
Roth won the 100-meter race in the 1973 Maccabiah Games in 11.75; the 200-meter race in the 1977 Maccabiah Games in 24.03; the 100-meter hurdles in the same games in 13.50; and the long jump in the 1969 Maccabiah Games with a 19 foot, 3/4 inch (5.81 meter) jump.
In 1999, Roth was awarded the Israel Prize for sports.[2][3]
She appears in the 1997 Oscar winning documentary One Day in September in which she gave her impressions and feelings during the 1972 Munich Athletes hostages crisis.
In 2005, she was voted the 127th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.[4]
Esther Shahamorov (her maiden name) married in 1973 with Peter Roth, a gymnast, who became her coach. She has a son, Yaron (born 1974), who was a national champion in fencing, and a daughter, Einat. After she retired from competitive sport she became a sports schoolteacher.