Israel at the 1996 Summer Olympics

Israel first participated in the Summer Olympics at Helsinki in 1952 and subsequently competed in every Summer Games before Atlanta except Moscow in 1980.[6] Its participation in the Winter Olympics began in 1994.[6] The Atlanta Games brought together more than 10,000 contestants representing 197 national Olympic committees.[1]

Yael Arad had won Israel’s first Olympic medal, a silver in judo, at Barcelona in 1992.[7] She returned for Atlanta after retiring in 1994 to remain close to her ailing father.[8] By the 1996 Olympics, Arad had participated in 49 international competitions, won 24 medals, and been Israeli champion 16 times.[9] Her earlier international successes included gold at the 1993 European Championships and silver at the 1993 World Championships.[10] Another Israeli judoka, Oren Smadja, entered Atlanta as a medal prospect after winning silver at the 1995 world championships in Japan.[8]

Fridman arrived with a strong record in international windsurfing: he had won silver at the world championships in both 1995 and 1996 and finished second at the European championships in both years.[3] His final world championship silver before Atlanta came at Haifa.[11] Atlanta would be his first Olympic appearance.[12]

Efraim Zinger led the Israeli delegation into the Atlanta Games.[13] A former prisoner of war, he had been captured in the Golan Heights during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and spent eight months in Syrian captivity.[13] Recalling the delegation’s entrance, he said: “All the world was watching, the Israeli flag was waving behind me proudly, and I was wondering whether any of them recognized me after 23 years.”[13] He later said he learned that Syrian television networks had paused their broadcasts while the Israeli delegation marched onto the track.[13]

Israel sent a 25-member delegation.[2] Among its returning Olympians was fencer Lydia Hatuel-Zuckerman, who had represented Israel at Los Angeles in 1984 and Barcelona in 1992 before competing in Atlanta.[10]

Gal Fridman won bronze in the men’s Mistral windsurfing event, giving Israel its third Olympic medal.[3] During the Games, he emerged as Israel’s last remaining hope for a medal.[11]

The Mistral competition was interrupted for two days when the wind died, and only nine of the eleven scheduled races were held.[11] Fridman stood fourth going into the final day of competition.[2] On July 29, he finished fourth in the penultimate race, leaving his medal position uncertain, before winning the final race.[11] Argentina’s Carlos Espínola finished second in that race and secured silver with 19 points, while Fridman took bronze with 21 points; Greece’s Nikos Kaklamanakis had secured gold with 17 points.[11]

Fridman received his medal from Alex Gilady.[11] The medal ceremony was shown the following day.[2] After winning bronze, Fridman said: “There are no words to describe this, but I feel very good...I felt the whole of Israel was watching me.”[3] He subsequently carried Israel’s flag at the closing ceremony.[11]

Yael Arad finished fifth in Atlanta after losing in the bronze-medal round while suffering from a viral infection.[9] Her opponent in the bronze-medal bout was Korean judoka Sung Sook Jung.[10] Oren Smadja was eliminated in the second round.[8]

Israel’s men’s medley relay qualified for the Atlanta Games for the first time.[4] Selection for the backstroke place involved a designated race between Eithan Urbach and Eran Groumi.[4] Groumi swam 58.00 seconds; Urbach, after hitting the wall and bleeding, regrouped and recorded 57.71 seconds to secure his place.[4]

The quartet of Vadim Alekseyev, Dan Kutler, Yoav Bruck, and Urbach advanced to the men’s 4×100-meter medley relay final.[4][14] They finished eighth, reaching the first Olympic final in Israeli swimming history.[4] Their qualification also marked a breakthrough for an Israeli team event.[14]

Ayelet Ohayon competed in both individual and team foil.[15] In the individual competition, she defeated Guatemala’s Carmen Rodrigues 15–2 before losing 15–10 to Germany’s Sabine Bau, the eighth seed.[15]

Israel’s women’s foil team was seeded ninth and included Ohayon, Ira Slivotsky, Lydia Hatoel-Zuckerman, and Lilach Parisky.[15] The team lost to China 29–45 and then defeated the United States 45–39 to finish ninth.[15] Its Atlanta appearance followed a ninth-place finish at the 1991 world championships and an invitation to compete at Barcelona in 1992; the team was not sent to represent Israel at the Olympics until Atlanta four years later.[10]

In shooting, Guy Starek scored 1,164 points in qualification for the 50-meter free rifle three-position event, finishing 17th, outside the top eight who advanced to the final.[16] In the 50-meter free rifle prone event, he tied for 26th with 593 points.[16] Pole vaulter Danny Krasnov finished 11th, while wrestler Gocha Tsitsiasvili placed fifth.[2]

A memorial service in Atlanta on July 28 commemorated the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches killed at the 1972 Munich Olympics.[5] The Atlanta Jewish Federation and the Olympic Committee of Israel organized the service, with relatives of the victims invited and members of the Israeli Olympic team expected at a reception afterward.[5]

A public memorial was dedicated at the Federation’s Selig Center following several years of negotiations.[17] The Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and the Southeastern Office of the Israel Consul worked to ensure that the Munich victims were remembered during the Games.[17] Relatives who had traveled from Israel and Jewish Olympians attended the dedication.[17]

The memorial incorporated a three-foot sculpture with an eternal flame, Olympic rings, and the victims’ names in English and Hebrew.[5] A mirrored stainless-steel base reflected the rings so that they appeared as eleven rings, symbolizing the Israeli victims.[5] A member of one victim’s family was scheduled to light the flame.[5]

Fridman’s Atlanta bronze earned him recognition as Israel’s Sportsman of the Year in 1996.[12] After receiving the medal, he declared: “I want to win a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics.”[11] He did not compete at Sydney in 2000 after Amit Inbar won Israel’s berth, but returned to international competition in 2001.[11] He eventually won Olympic gold at Athens in 2004.[11]

After the 2004 Olympics, the International Sailing Federation replaced the Mistral with the Neil Pryde board, ending the Olympic use of the class in which Fridman had won his Atlanta bronze.[18] In 2005, both his Olympic medals were stolen from his parents’ home.[8] A girl later found his gold medal in a forest near Fureidis, and it was returned to him; the Atlanta bronze was never recovered.[8]

Atlanta added a third medal to Israel’s Olympic history and produced the country’s first Olympic swimming final.[3][4] Fridman’s bronze preceded his later Olympic gold, while the relay’s eighth-place finish established a new milestone for Israeli swimming.[11][4]

Commemoration of the Munich victims remained a subject of disagreement during the Games.[5] Criticism focused on the International Olympic Committee’s lack of sponsorship of the Atlanta memorial, although an IOC representative was expected to attend and the service included IOC participation; sponsorship and participation were distinct issues.[5] A later Jewish Review of Books review described the families’ repeated requests for a minute of silence at Olympic opening ceremonies and the IOC’s refusals, characterizing its invitation to the victims’ children to attend Atlanta as a “rather low-key acknowledgment.”[19]

Atlanta was also the first Olympics to include a Palestinian team, whose appearance at the opening ceremony prompted mixed reactions among relatives of the murdered Israelis.[5] Guri Weinberg explicitly rejected blaming the Palestinian athletes, saying: “They’re athletes, not politicians just like my dad wasn’t a politician.”[5]