The Jewish Olympics in the Holy Land are over (in the whole Holy Land, really, we were transported all over the country in these games) and thus ended a busy week, sporting and logistical, I admit that I am happy to be on the way home.
It’s tiring to be Jewish! In the competitions in which I took part, I was called Macbiman and Macbiwaman and I was sent as part of a one-time triathlon team that was built from the leaders of the age groups of the Israeli league. The event is at the end of sports enthusiasts from all over the world, amateurs who are professionals in their hobby, in this case they are also Jewish. In general, Jews are good at enduring and then celebrating it.
Some things I learned!
Do I feel more Jewish? Maybe. Do not know. Did I become an Israeli only after Ishramen, with the mentality of a new immigrant like myself? In the first month I claimed yes, in retrospect I can say that probably not, but there is something associative in a group of people with a common denominator who go through suffering and pain together, and also rise above them together. It creates a feeling of belonging to this group whether you like it or not. I mean it could also be a gathering of bagpipe players for a week doing endurance sports together, and then I would end the week with a more “bagpipe” feeling. So yes, I may be a bit more Jewish. Surely a Jew sweats more.
For a week we all touched on what, more or less, the life of a professional athlete looks like, one who lives from competition to competition. Pro-tour riders, elite ITU triathletes or professional soccer players. And really, it just looks shiny!
“Jews are good at suffering and then celebrating it” | Photo: Ariel Agron
Competing every other day takes a toll on the body
The logistics are pretty crazy. It’s almost every night to sleep somewhere else, whether it’s a hotel, Air BnB, hostel or simply in the car (Dvir Zubri), not easy. There is no stability suddenly. All about bags and suitcases. In addition, competing every other day takes a toll on the body. Without having time to recover properly, one competition, two days after another competition, then a day and a half after another and again a jump at 5:30 in the morning and this time also one to two hours of all-out and high intensity. Jews also turn out to be competitive people. In other words, competitiveness does not shorten after circumcision, it turns out. A scientific finding.
Accumulated load on the body, delayed recovery. The performance is therefore less good than what you expect and are used to from yourself and this is frustrating. The accumulated fatigue obviously does not help the mood so it turns out that you sometimes forget the most important thing… that you are there mainly to enjoy yourself.
I brought books, a computer and even a musical instrument with me because I was sure that I was also going on a vacation week, that I would have all the time in the world to complete all the leisure tasks that I don’t have enough of in the daily Tel Aviv routine, in the end it turned out that I didn’t touch any of them! who had time I barely had time to recover from one competition to another.
A professional athlete who lives like this all year long feels that he is nothing more than a feeding, sleeping and competition machine. This. A tough loop. Not sure I could enjoy such a routine for a long time. But for one week, it was interesting to experience it, to feel what it’s like.
Argentinians are the happiest people in the world. They just lifted every event, all week. Stunning.
We are all the same in the end and the same things are important to everyone. I’ve seen American college athletes, Brazilian teenage girls and 40+ age group athletes from Australia who, just after the finish line, first of all ask for a photo, still in a high pulse from the competition that just ended, the main thing is to get a good photo to upload immediately to the story. In the end, the athletes of the age groups, the amateur athletes, what do we have if not the love and appreciation from the near and far environment. the physical and the virtual.
And medals. It doesn’t matter what dialect people speak, what language and what color their skin is. There is nothing that makes us happier than coming home with a metal on the chest, no matter what color the main thing is that it is shiny and that there is a picture on the podium.
We are like the cookie monster only of medals.
The conductors of the Maccabiman and the Maccabiwaman | Photo: Ariel Agron
Diaspora Jews who come to Israel are the most excited people on the globe
They say that Maccabiah is the biggest matchmaking project in the world. Indeed, there was mingling, exchanging shirts (a very strong custom in Maccabiah, it turns out) and social gatherings, but less than perhaps expected.
The teams were most of the time inside themselves and in a sea of strangers and people go first to those they already know. it’s natural. I didn’t know too many members of other delegations this week, but we, the members of the Israeli team ????????, became very close. Instead of seeing each other once a month when there is a competition, we found ourselves together for a whole week and it created a great opportunity to get to know each other better. I learned that I am in a great environment. Good, positive and special people as they are strong.
There is no age for this sport. There were athletes, also from Israel, 60+ years old, 70+ years old and even 80+ years old.
And this brings me to another point that what a pleasure it was to see the top coaches in Israel, Inbar Zahavi, Yoram Levev, Lior Cohen and more, participating with us, competing with everyone, shoulder to shoulder together with their trainers, taking part in all the competitions and all the allocations. It gives me appreciation and respect for them, but also inspiration as a future coach.
The Jewish Olympics. Yes?… 60 national teams from all over the world, all from Europe, Australia and the American continents.
Are there no Jews who play sports in Japan? in China?
The absence of Russian Jews was also jarring.
There is politics in sports it turns out. There is even genealogy in sports… fact, the Maccabiah.
Everything works out in the end. Every pain, every difficulty, every crisis.
The drop in iron and hemoglobin that I experienced less than a week before the Maccabiah brought me to the ER and a two-day hospitalization in Belinson, the body was relatively acclimatized and I may not have performed my usual during the week of the competitions, but I finished them all even though it was not clear at first. Everything works out in the end.
Running the half marathon in Jerusalem broke my legs and others. What do I, as a Tel Avivian, understand about the Rolling Hills run? In the second half of the run my legs fell apart, my quadriceps muscles contracted and locked up, I found myself switching to walking several times and the next day I couldn’t go down the stairs like a human being. The legs somehow recovered, relatively returned to themselves and the competitions of the rest of the week happened and ended. Everything works out in the end. I was just worried.
In the NGS competition, the heart rate was so high, 37 min at 175 average heart rate, that sometimes you lower your head from too much effort. That’s why I don’t ride with a NGS helmet aka the ‘eighth passenger’ helmet. One of the times I lowered my head I didn’t notice that I was in a direct line to step on an unruly water bottle on the road that probably fell to one of the riders who jumped in front of me. At the last moment I cut the handlebars to the left and prevented myself from a painful encounter with highway 9 at 45 km/h. Everything works out in the end (and maybe you should also not take your eyes off the road).
During a 3 km swim in the Sea of Galilee, which is not my strong point anyway, the swimming cap and goggles pressed so hard on my forehead and eye sockets that the pain was unbearable and only from this thoughts of retirement ran through my mind. But when I remembered practicing the Vipassana technique in such cases – to observe the pain, to see him as something that happens to me but not to me, to watch it as if from a high balcony, not to identify with it. To see how it changes, weakens and disappears because it is the nature of every physical sensation, to pass and pass, and it helped. The pain in the forehead and eye sockets really faded and changed to pain in the shoulders and then in the legs My head. It’s the nature of pain. To change and move to another place. It’s lucky that I didn’t react to it and didn’t listen to thoughts of retirement, because the swimming ended in the end and I was happy. Everything passes and works out in the end.
Photo: Courtesy of Ariel Agron
“Making dreams come true is an acquired skill”
And this is true for wherever you are.
It was Emil Shakhaldian’s dream to win Macbeiman and he did it far away in Eilat, quietly, with hard and determined work. I’m sure there were quite a few participants from abroad that it was their dream to come to Maccabiah and they fulfilled it. Each one, through hard work, from wherever they came from.
Day by day, training after training, step and step.
And meanwhile in the real Israel, in the center of the country, in life itself, good Israelis continued to do good deeds. Viniv Gonda organized a fundraiser and collected NIS 15,000 from other good Israelis to buy a new bike for a cute guy who was also supposed to participate in Maccabiah, but the night before his car was broken into and the bike was stolen. Good Israelis who do good deeds.
There is no more leg-breaking (and injured) sport than running. There is no more leg-breaking run than the ups and downs of Jerusalem. That’s why a triathlon ends with a run and doesn’t start with it. But not in Maccabiah. Oh no. In Maccabiah, the competition week begins with a half marathon, on a course with a greater cumulative climb even than the traditional Jerusalem marathon course itself. So that we can have more fun and interesting later this week… Thank you very much for that.
Another challenge in living as a professional athlete as we experienced this game week is the nutritional challenge. For a whole week I lived mainly on carbohydrates and protein. Carbohydrate loading as you do before competitions and significant amounts of protein so that the body will quickly rebuild itself and have enough to recover for the next competition. So it turned out that for a week I avoided oils, fruits and vegetables which burden the digestive system and are not good before endurance competitions. For a whole week I ate no dietary fiber, no salad, no fruit, no avocado, nothing. Mainly buckwheat and potato. Gadamet is not easy! I really missed the cucumber.
I did not find a good Jewish woman in the end. 60 national teams from all over the world, not one was found. One big J-Date Olympics and nothing. Maybe I’m looking too far. Maybe she’s closer than I think.
A great production as only an international event can be. We got everything we needed, from bike mechanics on the morning of the competitions, through invested participation kits and breakfast with vegan and even gluten-free options for those who chose, to branded t-shirts for each division. The triathlon union took part in the organization and apart from the mess of polo shirts we didn’t get for the opening ceremony, everything was wonderfully organized and the union surpassed itself. Respect and thanks to Aner, Erez, Gal, Lior and everyone else who did the work. I hope it continues like this in our competitions here.
We are a nomadic people. We are a moving people. We all once started in one place, here actually, and spread all over the world. And we keep moving and moving from place to place.
For example, one American triathlete named Shawn, who bombed the NGS and doggedly chased Emil Shakhaldian (who took the Maccabiman at the end), an American college guy just like in the movies. After I broke my teeth to talk to him in English at one of the breakfasts, it suddenly turned out that he speaks great Russian. His parents are generally from Moscow and with the big increase in 1990 instead of going to Israel like my parents, he and his parents immigrated to the USA. Suddenly the transition with him to our original mother tongue brought us closer in an instant, the whole dynamic between us changed. This is a small world and we are a moving people. with of long distances. with endurance
In conclusion, it was great for a week to see the similarities and differences between us, the Israelites scattered over the planet. And I’m already waiting for the next Maccabiah, in about 3 years, when all the Jews of the world will unite again.
Results from Makbiman and Makbiwaman
Overall Maccabiman winner – Emil Shakhaldian
The winner is Klalit Macbiyouman – Hadar Shahar
Maccabiman winners 18-29
Sean Forer (USA)
Tomer Eliezer (Israel)
Anatoly Forer (England)
Winners from 18-29
Hadar Shahar (Israel)
Sol Utensimer (Chile)
Nicole Dvir (Argentina)
Maccabiman winners 30-34
Emil Shakhaldian (Israel)
Jordan Barak (Israel)
Yaniv Fatal (Israel)
Maccabiyouman wins 30-39
Amber Zahavi (Israel)
Naa Kfari (Israel)
Cindy Ben Harosh (Israel)
Maccabiman winners 35-39
Amir Alfi (Israel)
Ariel Agron (Israel)
Tomer Shalom (Israel)
Maccabiman winners 40-44
Federico Szochet (Argentina)
Itay Matityahu (Israel)
David Steiner (Czech Republic)
Maccabiyouman wins 40-49
Linda Zirdok (Mexico)
Sharon Almagor (Israel)
Orit Smith (Israel)
Maccabiman winners 45-49
Assaf Cohen (Israel)
Asher Cooper (Israel)
Itay Booker (Israel)
Maccabiman winners 50-54
Baruch Gabrieli (Israel)
Liran Stripler (Israel)
Hadar Koren (Israel)
Maccabiyouman wins 50-59
Irit Efrati (Israel)
Einav Vared (Israel)
Carolina Yalti (Argentina)
Maccabiman winners 55-59
Neil Welk (USA)
Gabriel Robka (Argentina)
Alan Kaplan (Australia)
Maccabiman winners 60+
Adi Paikin (Israel)
Yoram Levev (Israel)
Sami Ben Shatrit (Israel)
Winners from 60+ days
Tracy Specter (USA)
Ronit Sherman (Israel)
Gabriela Ron (Israel)