Esther Roth-Shahamorov

Born in Tel Aviv in 1952, Roth-Shahamorov grew up in the city’s Kiryat Shalom neighborhood.[3][4] A timed 60-metre run in sixth grade first drew attention to her speed. At about 14, she began organized athletics training with Hapoel Tel Aviv coach Amitzur Shapira, whom she later described as the coach who changed her life.[4]

Roth-Shahamorov recalled that Shapira told her at their first training session that he intended to prepare her for the Olympics.[4] By ninth grade she had broken Israel’s hurdles record, and at age 16 she qualified for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in the 80-metre hurdles.[3][8] At the qualifying trial she ran 10.8 seconds against a standard of 11.2 seconds, but strained a hamstring after running without a sufficient warm-up. The injury prevented her from travelling to the Games.[8]

Her early career also reflected the limited resources then available in Israeli athletics. She recalled competing in Munich in a market-bought top and wearing Puma shoes taken from Shapira’s stock of used athletic footwear because a pair previously worn by another athlete happened to fit her.[8]

Accounts describe Roth-Shahamorov’s 1970 breakthrough in Bangkok differently. The Encyclopaedia Judaica identifies the competition as the Asian Games and records gold medals in the 100-metre hurdles and pentathlon and silver in the long jump.[3] Roth-Shahamorov described it as the Asian Athletics Championships and recalled winning the 100 metres and pentathlon and taking silver in the long jump.[4] Both accounts identify the meet as her first major international success.

The Encyclopaedia Judaica says she was named sportswoman of the year in Israel and Asia in 1971.[3] A broader account of Israeli sport describes her as Israel’s leading athlete of the decade and says she was selected as the country’s athlete of the year in 1970, 1971, 1974, 1975 and 1976.[9] Roth-Shahamorov later described the 1970 Bangkok competition as her breakthrough into public awareness.[4]

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, Roth-Shahamorov competed in the 100 metres and 100-metre hurdles, advancing through rounds in both events.[8] She missed the 100-metre final in a photo-finish and had qualified for the hurdles semifinals, which were scheduled for the day after the attack on the Israeli delegation.[6]

On September 5, 1972, members of the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September attacked the Israeli team’s quarters. Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yossef Romano were killed during the initial attack, and nine other delegation members were taken hostage. All nine, including Shapira, were killed during a failed German rescue operation.[5][6] The Israeli delegation attended a memorial service and withdrew from the Games.[6]

Roth-Shahamorov recalled being awakened by loud knocking and initially thinking she was late for her race. During the hostage crisis, a delegation doctor told her that she was expected to compete the following day. She later described the pressure by saying, “The Israeli ideal of not succumbing to terror was supposed to be played out through me.” After the hostages were killed, she did not run and instead joined the delegation at the memorial service.[6]

After Munich, Roth-Shahamorov considered leaving athletics. She later entered an international competition in South Africa without having resumed regular training and unexpectedly won the 100-metre hurdles, an experience she said persuaded her to continue.[4] Her husband, Peter Roth, supported her return and became her coach.[4]

The following year, she won three gold medals at the 1973 Ninth Maccabiah Games while three months pregnant.[3] In 1974, after giving birth by Caesarean delivery, she won the 100 metres, 200 metres and 100-metre hurdles at the Asian Games in Tehran and was selected as the outstanding athlete of the Games.[3][4] Taken together, the event-by-event accounts of her 1970 and 1974 Asian competitions give her five gold medals and one silver.

At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Roth-Shahamorov reached the women’s 100-metre hurdles final and finished sixth in 13.04 seconds, becoming the first Israeli athlete to reach an Olympic final.[2] East Germany’s Johanna Schaller won in 12.77 seconds, and the first five finishers represented Eastern Bloc countries.[2]

At the Montreal opening ceremony, Roth-Shahamorov carried the Israeli flag alongside images commemorating the 11 delegation members murdered in Munich.[2] She said she viewed Montreal as a way to complete what had been cut short four years earlier, while emphasizing that she wanted to compete as an athlete rather than receive sympathy for the tragedy.[2]

The Encyclopaedia Judaica describes Montreal as her last major competition and says she officially retired in 1980, when Israel joined the boycott of the Moscow Olympics.[3] Roth-Shahamorov recalled directing her training toward Moscow and reacting angrily when the boycott ended that goal. She subsequently became a track-and-field coach.[3][4]

Roth-Shahamorov also worked in education and served as a physical-education teacher at HaSharon middle school in Ra’anana.[8] The National Library of Israel identifies a photograph as documenting a retirement ceremony for her in 1983. Its accompanying lesson says she agreed to the ceremony for the wider public, although it supplies no further context for that statement.[10]

In 2026, Roth-Shahamorov disclosed that she had undergone two kidney transplants and treatment for two brain tumours. Later that year, she reported that the treatments had succeeded and that she had returned to exercising in a gym.[2][8]

Roth-Shahamorov’s Montreal final established a landmark for Israeli sport. Her career encompassed the sprints, hurdles, pentathlon and long jump, and she held multiple Israeli records.[1] A 2023 Jerusalem Post column stated that she once held five national records simultaneously, three of them for more than 20 years.[11]

Her Israeli women’s 100-metre record was especially durable. She ran 11.45 seconds during the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the record stood for 46 years before Diana Vaisman broke it in 2018. Roth-Shahamorov recalled being pleased by Vaisman’s achievement and continued to follow her career.[4]

Roth-Shahamorov also became an important figure in the development of Israeli women’s sport. She recalled that girls had been excluded from events including the triple jump, marathon, pole vault and hammer throw, reflecting attitudes that women were too weak for those competitions and should remain at home to raise children. She contrasted those restrictions with the broader athletic and professional opportunities later available to women.[7] Her own return to elite competition after pregnancy and childbirth offered an early Israeli example of combining motherhood with an international sporting career.[3][4]

She received the Israel Prize for her contribution to sport in 1999.[3] Roth-Shahamorov described the award as highly honorable and moving.[4]

Her career is also remembered through the history of the Munich attack. The Israel Forever Foundation identifies her as an athlete discovered and coached by Shapira, who served as head coach of Israel’s track-and-field team and trained ten of the country’s leading athletes.[1] Roth-Shahamorov’s recollections of Munich and her subsequent return to Olympic competition linked her athletic legacy with the memory of her murdered coach and the Israeli delegation.[2][6]

Roth-Shahamorov has alleged that the five runners who finished ahead of her in the Montreal hurdles final used performance-enhancing drugs. A 2026 account reported her allegation and her interpretation of a later exchange involving winner Johanna Schaller, but it did not present test results, admissions or an official ruling establishing that the athletes had used banned substances. The allegation therefore remains unconfirmed.[2]