Or Sasson

Sasson was born in Jerusalem on October 18, 1990, and grew up in the city's Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood.[1][4] He began practicing judo at age eight in 1998, following his older brother Alon to a community center in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood.[4][5] His older brother was an important influence on his decision to take up the sport.[1][4] Sasson later recalled that winning an Olympic medal had been his dream since he was eight.[6]

His early experience of judo included fear and difficulty, and he later described struggling socially at high school while balancing his studies with journeys from Jerusalem to the Wingate Institute several times a week.[2] He sometimes listened to music from the film Rocky and imagined himself competing at the Olympics.[2] His parents supported both brothers' sporting careers by preparing meals, doing laundry, and driving them to competitions.[2]

Sasson began competing in 2005 and won his first Israeli national championship in 2007, at age 17.[5][4] That victory was the first of eight national titles over his career.[4] He subsequently lived in Netanya for several years to be near the Wingate Institute, where he trained twice daily, and studied business administration at the Ruppin Academic Center.[7]

Sasson's domestic titles included the Israeli championship in the under-100-kilogram category in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011, as well as the over-100-kilogram championship in 2011 and 2012.[5] His first significant international result was a bronze medal at a European Cup tournament in London in 2009.[1] In 2010 he won bronze at tournaments in Amsterdam and Tallinn; in 2012 he won the World Cup in Prague and took bronze in Madrid and Lisbon.[1] He placed fifth at the European Championships in Budapest in 2013 and won gold at tournaments in Tbilisi and Warsaw that year.[1]

As he grew, Sasson moved from the under-90-kilogram division to under 100 kilograms, before making the transition to the over-100-kilogram category in early 2014.[7] An injury and discussions with Israeli judo association chairman Moshe Ponte and national coach Oren Smadja preceded the decision to face heavier opponents.[7] His coaches believed that his relative speed and athleticism could give him an advantage in the heavyweight division.[7]

At the 2015 European Games in Baku, which also hosted the European judo championships, Sasson reached the final and won silver.[7] He repeated that result at the 2016 European Championships in Kazan.[7] His preparations for Rio also included gold at the 2016 Tbilisi Grand Prix and silver medals at the Paris Grand Slam, the Masters in Mexico, and a European Cup event in Bulgaria.[7]

The Rio 2016 Games were Sasson's first Olympic appearance.[8] Competing in the men's over-100-kilogram event, he defeated Egypt's Islam el-Shehaby in the first round, scoring a waza-ari followed by an ippon.[8] He then beat Poland's Maciej Sarnacki in the second round and the Netherlands' Roy Meyer in the quarterfinals.[8] In the semifinal, France's Teddy Riner scored a waza-ari in the closing seconds to defeat him and subsequently won his second consecutive Olympic gold medal.[8]

Sasson secured bronze by defeating Cuba's Alex García Mendoza in a bout decided by penalties, with García Mendoza receiving one more penalty than Sasson.[8] The result gave Sasson four victories from his five bouts that day.[8] His bronze was Israel's second medal of the Rio Games, following fellow judoka Yarden Gerbi's bronze.[8] After the handshake incident in his opening bout, Sasson put the episode aside and remained focused on winning a medal.[8]

In November 2017, Morocco allowed Sasson to compete wearing Israeli insignia following intervention by International Judo Federation president Marius Vizer.[9]

Sasson returned to Olympic competition at the Tokyo 2020 Games, which took place in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[10] He lost his individual round-of-16 bout to Riner and faced him again when selected for Israel's mixed-team quarterfinal against France.[11] Riner also won their team encounter.[12] Israel subsequently advanced through the repechage and defeated the Russian Olympic Committee in the bronze-medal match.[12] The team medal gave Sasson his second Olympic bronze, although he did not win a bout at those Games.[11]

The bronze-winning squad included Sasson, Timna Nelson-Levy, Li Kochman, Gili Sharir, Tohar Butbul, Peter Paltchik, Sagi Muki, and Raz Hershko.[10] Their result was Israel's third medal at the Tokyo Games.[13]

Sasson announced his retirement in May 2022, at age 31.[2] He said he had felt close to retiring after Rio, when he achieved his principal ambition, but continued for another Olympic cycle.[2] His motivation was no longer the same after his first medal, and after Tokyo he felt satisfied with two Olympic medals rather than continuing without a sense of purpose.[2]

Following retirement, Sasson took up lecturing, recorded nearly 50 podcast episodes, partnered with Shalva, traveled, and taught judo.[6] In a 2025 interview, he recounted an encounter at a New York workshop with an Egyptian man who identified himself as el-Shehaby's teammate and apologized for the Rio incident.[6] Sasson said that he shook the man's hand and hugged him, describing the exchange as “closure.”[6]

Sasson's Rio bronze and Gerbi's bronze were Israel's only two medals at the 2016 Olympics.[14] Together, their results brought the country's Olympic medal total to nine, five of them earned in judo.[14] Their achievements followed an earlier Israeli judo medal won by Ariel Zeevi in 2004.[7]

The Rio medals also ended a prolonged gap in Israeli Olympic success: before Gerbi's bronze, Israel had not won an Olympic medal since Beijing 2008, and Sasson then added the country's second medal of the Rio Games.[2][8] His subsequent mixed-team bronze in Tokyo gave him a second Olympic medal.[11] His career also included eight Israeli national titles and two European silver medals.[4][1]

Sasson's public activities after retirement extended beyond competition into teaching, speaking, and podcasting.[6] In his later reflections, he connected the end of his sporting career with satisfaction at having fulfilled the Olympic ambition he had held since childhood.[6][2]

After losing to Sasson in Rio, el-Shehaby refused his offered handshake and turned away.[8] The crowd booed, and the episode generated international criticism and debate about sportsmanship, normalization, and relations between Egypt and Israel.[3] El-Shehaby was summoned to a hearing before the International Olympic Committee, while Egypt's Olympic Committee said that the decision had been his own.[3]

Egyptian public reactions were divided: some regarded his refusal as understandable in light of pressures he faced at home, while many others criticized it as unsportsmanlike and harmful to Egypt's image.[3] These differing responses formed part of the political debate surrounding the encounter rather than a single shared Egyptian position.[3]