Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or

At the 2005 European Youth Olympic Festival, Shapira Bar-Or improved the Israeli under-16 record in the 100-meter freestyle during the preliminary round and advanced to the final.[6] He finished fourth in the final with a time of 52.82 seconds, improving his preliminary time by 0.27 seconds.[6] He also competed in the 200-meter backstroke, placing sixth in both the preliminary round and the final, with a time of 2:08.32.[6]

At the 2007 championships at the Wingate Institute, he won the 200-meter freestyle in 1:50.06, edging Shai Livnat by four hundredths of a second.[7] The victory earned him his third gold medal of those championships.[7]

Shapira Bar-Or joined Israel’s 2008 Olympic delegation shortly before the Beijing Games, following a ruling by the Olympic Committee of Israel’s High Court.[8] He had initially missed the 200-meter freestyle qualifying standard by four hundredths of a second, but the court accepted his Israeli-record time of 1:48.76, set in Croatia approximately two weeks earlier.[8] His selection followed circumstances in which Max Jaben had initially been named Israel’s representative in the event, leaving Shapira Bar-Or without an opportunity to seek selection through the provision for three young athletes.[8]

In Beijing, Shapira Bar-Or won his 200-meter freestyle qualifying heat in 1:47.78.[9] Sixth at the halfway point, he overtook the other swimmers to win the heat and advance to the semifinals, ranking 15th overall in qualifying.[9] After the race, he said: “I’m delighted. I wanted to prove to everybody that I deserved to be sent to the Games.”[9] He subsequently finished eighth in his semifinal.[9] His overall Olympic placing was 15th in the 200-meter freestyle and 26th in the 100-meter freestyle.[1]

By 2011, Shapira Bar-Or held the Israeli 100-meter freestyle record with a time of 48.93 seconds, as well as the national record in the 200-meter freestyle.[4] At the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, he recorded 1:48.11 in the 200-meter freestyle.[10] In May 2012, he won his heat at the European Championships in 1:48.93 and advanced to the semifinals ranked third overall.[10] He had already met the qualifying standard for the London Olympics.[10]

At London 2012, Shapira Bar-Or competed in the men’s 200-meter freestyle as part of an Israeli delegation of 37 athletes across eight sports.[2] He finished second in his qualifying heat behind Canada’s Blake Worsley, recording 1:48.60.[11] His overall placing was 21st, outside the semifinal positions.[11] No Israeli athlete won a medal at those Games.[2]

At the 2014 European Swimming Championships in Berlin, Shapira Bar-Or competed in Israel’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay alongside David Gamburg, Tom Kremer, and Liran Konovalov.[5] The team broke the Israeli record twice during the competition and finished sixth in the final, where it recorded 3:18.43.[5]

Shapira Bar-Or’s Beijing performance included a 15th-place finish in the 200-meter freestyle after he advanced to the semifinal.[1][3] His individual national records included the 100-meter freestyle mark of 48.93 seconds listed in 2011, while his later international results included participation in the record-breaking relay at the 2014 European Championships.[4][5]

After the relay team’s sixth-place finish in Berlin, he emphasized the prospects of its younger swimmers: “We are very happy, we met expectations. There are young people here who show that Israeli swimming has a future; we can be optimistic.”[5]

Shapira Bar-Or’s exclusion from Israel’s team for the August 2010 European Championships became the subject of a committee inquiry.[12] His absence occurred amid a dispute between his family and the Israeli Swimming Association; a contemporary assessment suggested that his Israeli Championships results that summer could have placed him in contention for the 100- and 200-meter freestyle semifinals in Budapest.[13]

Findings reported in 2011 characterized the decision to exclude him as non-professional and raised the possibility of discrimination against him and his coach, Meno May, connected to their affiliation with the Jerusalem Raba club.[12] The two trained privately outside the main national-team framework; discrimination was raised as a possibility, rather than established as a definitive finding.[12]