Who will bring home the medals?

By HEATHER CHAIT

The Jerusalem Post's Heather Chait assesses Israel's chances at Atlanta

Barcelona and the nation's two Olympic medals left the public slightly dazed and greedy for more. Four years have passed and after months of injuries, exhausting training and nervous anticipation, the national delegation to Atlanta was announced.

Generally, the Israeli criteria for inclusion in the Olympic squad are more stringent than the international ones, and there is already talk that for Sydney in 2000, the country's Elite Sport Unit may adopt the international benchmarks for local athletes.

In Barcelona, the delegation numbered 30, but only 26 Israeli competitors will travel to Atlanta. Although sports officials are desperate to downplay the expectations and the pressure on the athletes, the question uppermost in everyone's mind is "Who will bring home the medals this time?" Sharing center stage are four protagonists: Yael Arad, Oren Smadja, Gocha Chichiashvili and Gal Friedman.

The 25-year-old Arad who brought glory to Israel by winning the silver medal in the 61 kilogram judo category at Barcelona, bears little resemblance to the Arad of Atlanta. Now 29, married, competing in her last Olympics and after a spate of injuries, Arad has slipped into her duty of role model for Israeli youth.

Arad has enormous mental resources and is tremendously motivated, but what of her recent results? Having passed up many more tournaments than those in which she competed, Arad begged off citing injury, but critics say her coach Dani Leopold was hesitant to reveal her skills to rivals.
Arad sealed her Olympic spot at last year's world championships where she finished fifth after losing to France's Catherine Fleury, Arad's nemesis from the Barcelona final.

Ofakim-born, bronze medalist Smadja has been destined to the role of supporting actor to Arad over the past four years. He appeared set to come into his own at Atlanta, before a serious injury -- a torn ligament in his left leg during training -- seemed to have caused him a major setback just one week before the start of the Games. Smadja has said he is determined to go to Atlanta and will give a 100 percent effort. Now competing in the 78kg class, the 26-year-old was at his peak and talked openly about his medal chances. Only time will tell if the injury will heal sufficiently to allow him to perform to his full potential.

Putting his well-known romantic liaisons and disputes with coach Moshe Ponti aside, Smadja has now matured and developed a solid reputation for delivering the goods in major tournaments. Last year, he won the silver medal at the World Championships in Japan.

Smadja's main opposition at Atlanta will be Japan's Koga, the world and Olympic champion, who, like Smadja, has moved up to 78kg from 71.
Twenty-two-year old wrestler Chichiashvili is a serious contender for an Olympic medal in the Greco-Roman class. At the 1995 World Championships, he won the silver medal and this year he was third at the European Championships.

Recognizing his potential, sports officials caved in to his demands and he now owns his own apartment in Beersheva, trains frequently in the former-Soviet Union and has been afforded the unprecedented luxury of having two coaches accompany him to Atlanta. With his rigorous schedule, the 82kg native-Georgian could be the first immigrant to join the Olympic medal club, which is exclusively sabra.

Windsurfer Friedman, just 21, made headlines when he usurped the title of "King of the Waves" from Amit Inbar, who had competed in Barcelona and was the favorite for the sole windsurfing Atlanta ticket. Friedman quietly eroded Inbar's advantage, winning silver medals at last year's and this year's World Championships.
Friedman, at 1.84m and 68kg, has the ideal physique for his sport as well as an excellent coach in Gur Steinberg, himself a past world champion.

If Friedman, whose first name means "wave," can keep his concentration while competing against Nikos Kaklamanakis from Greece and New Zealand's Bruce Kendall and Aaron McIntosh, he could also be in line for Olympic laurels.

Until last month, Israel's participation in the athletics event seemed largely symbolic. Then, high jumper Constantin Matusevich sailed over the bar at 2.34m, five cms better than his own outdoor national record, and the picture brightened considerably.

In the pole vault, Dani Krasnov, with a personal best of 5.75m and Constantin Simionev, who broke Krasnov's national record in Tel Aviv with a leap of 5.76 meters just two weeks before the start of the Games, will both compete in the same track event for the first time. While this adds prestige to the Israeli team, neither -- on paper at least -- poses a serious threat to Ukrainian Sergei Bubka who reigns supreme with his world record of 6.14 meters.

Triple jumper Rogel Nahum failed to make the Barcelona final but, having overcome his injuries and after regaining his form and confidence, he could place in the final 12 alongside his friend and world champion and world record-holder Jonathan Edwards of Great Britain. Last year, Nahum finished 11th in the World Championships in Sweden. Nahum holds the Israeli record at 17.20m which does not really compare with Edwards' remarkable 18.29m.

Israel's swimming team, led by Yoav Bruck, seized the headlines earlier this year in the World Cup competition in Europe where Bruck smashed 10 national records.

Bruck will compete in the 50- and 100m freestyle races (where his best times are 22.16 seconds and 50.59s respectively) against Russia's peerless Alexander Popov (48.21 in the 100m). He will anchor the 4x100 individual medley together with 19-year-old Eytan Orbach (backstroke), Vadim Alexsev (breaststroke) and Dan Kutler (butterfly).

Hopes of victories depend mightily on the health of Alexsev, whose acute pelvic injury kept him on land from February until last month.

Another off-chance for stardom is marksman Boris Polak, at 42 the oldest figure on the squad. Polak was the world champion in the air-rifle category in 1994 and in the last two years, finished fourth in World Cup competitions.

Alex Tripolski and Guy Starick make up the shooting trio, but few expectations are predicted for them.

The maritime contingent also includes the Chantal brothers, Nir and Ran, who sail in the Olympic-470 class and have maintained a reputable, if not dazzling, place among the upper echelons of the world's sailors, including a bronze medal this year at the world championships.

Anat Fabrikant and Shani Kedmi are the female representatives in the same class who surprised last year with their eighth-place finish among 146 entries in the European Nations Championships. Leading the foil fencing team is Lydia Hatoel-Zuckerman, at 33 in her third, and farewell Olympic Games. Improving with age, Hatoel-Zuckerman is currently enjoying her highest-ever world ranking, at 11th.

The other women fencers will make their Olympic debut. Alongside Zuckerman will be Ayelet Ohayon, Ira Slivotsky and Lilach Parisky. Ohayon ended eighth in the final of the World Cup this year which moved her to 25th in the world rankings.

Israel is sending a sole representative in weightlifting, boxing and kayaking. Vacislav Ivanovsky, who at 21, weighs 99kg, has recently attracted more headlines for his refusal to undergo drug tests than for his weightlifting prowess. Under his belt, he has a silver medal from the European Championships this year.

Pugilist Vacislav Neiman's success includes a bronze medal at the European Championships in 1993.

Lior Carmi was the last athlete to be chosen after the Olympic list was apparently signed and sealed. Her kayaking achievements have been consistent and this year include a second place in the World Cup tournament.
Rounding out the delegation are Israel National Olympic Committee President Yoram Oberkowitz, INOC Director-General Efraim Zinger and Secretary Zvi Warshiak. Alex Giladi is also a member of the party as Israel's first and only representative prestigious on the International Olympic Committee.



The history of Israel's participation in the Olympic Games



Prior to the Atlanta Games, Israel's athletes had competed in ten Olympiads.

Altogether, 192 Sportsmen and women have represented Israel at Olympic Games, 160 men and 32 women. Some 20 of these have represented their country twice, while two have done so on three occasions.

Israel's representatives have fought for honors in 14 various disciplines.

The first Israeli delegation, which included 26 athletes, went to the 1952 Helsinki Olympiad.

During the following Olympics, which took place in Melbourne 1956, Israel was entangled in the Sinai campaign and accordingly only three athletes represented the country.

The Rome Games in 1960 featured an Israeli team of 23 athletes, while in Tokyo, four years later, there were only 10 competitors.

The Mexico City Games of 1968 included a soccer team and 12 athletes who participated in individual events, an overall total of 31 aspiring medalists.

Israel sent a team of 14 athletes to the Munich Olympics of 1972, where 11 of the delegation, including competitors, coaches and referees were murdered by Palestinian Black September terrorists.

There were 28 representatives to the Montreal Games of 1976, while in 1980, Israel joined the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games following the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

The largest-ever Israeli Olympic squad went to the Los Angeles Games of 1984, where 33 sportsmen and women participated.

The Seoul Olympics of 1988 saw Israel field a team of 9 competitors, while the Barcelona representation in 1992 included 30 athletes.



The Israel Olympic Committee



The Israel Olympic Committee (IOC), which was formed in 1933, is the parent organization of all sport in Israel.

In 1935, the IOC received an invitation from Great Britain, through the Mandate government, to participate in the infamous Berlin Games of 1936, but the invitation was rejected.

In 1948, an invitation was again received, this time to take part in the first post-War Olympics in London. The IOC accepted, and intended to send a delegation, but in the meantime, with the formation of the State of Israel, the fledgling state's participation was barred on the basis that the new country's Olympic committee had not been recognized, while its predecessor, the body which represented Eretz Yisrael, had ceased to exist on the formation of the State.

The IOC began to operate on a proper and regular basis in 1951, after the situation in Israel had settled. A year later, Israel sent a delegation of 26 athletes to the Helsinki Games of 1952.

The IOC is now responsible for all delegtions to Olympic Games, regional Games and congresses of international sports bodies. It is also responsible for establishing sports facilities in Israel, and assists with the advancement of athletes and awards grants to individuals and sports organizations.


Outstanding achievements by Israeli athletes at the Olympics


Silver medal:

Yael Arad (Judo)

1992

Bronze medal:

Oren Smadja (Judo)

1992

Fourth place:

Yoel Sela, Eldad Amir (sailing)

1988

Fifth place:

Eduard Weitz (weightlifting)

1976

Fifth-eighth place:

Ya'acov Shmuel (boxing)

1988

Sixth place:

Shahamorov-Roth (track and field)

1976

Andrei Denisov (weightlifting

1976

Seventh place

Rami Meron (wrestling)

1976

Eddy Koaz (judo)

1984

Eighth place:

Shimshon Brockman, Eitan Friedlander (sailing)

1984

Yitzhak Yonassi (shooting)

1984

Yevgeny (Danny) Krasnov (track and field)

1992

Amit Inbar (sailing)

1992

Ninth place:

Yoav Ra'anan (diving)

1968

Meir Daloya (weightlifting)

1984

Shai Bachar, Erez Shemesh (sailing)

1992

Quarter final place:

Soccer team

1968,1976

 


Going for the gold


By BRIAN BLUM

(July 23) ATHLETES aren't the only Israeli competitors in Atlanta at this week's Olympics. Anyone wanting to pick up the

official 100-year Olympic retrospective on CD-ROM will be helping a small Israeli developer race toward the high-tech

finish line. Tel Aviv-based SEA, a company with no track record, operating out of a small apartment in Herzliya, passed its

first hurdle nearly two years ago when it snagged the exclusive worldwide license to use the five-ring logo, as well as

extensive archival footage for its Olympic Gold CD-ROM.

 

How did the virtually unknown company convince the IOC (International Olympic Committee) it had the right stuff?

Surprisingly, it was two young Israelis who gave the idea to the IOC in the first place.

 

Ze'ev Rozov, 26, SEA's co-managing director, was a history student at Tel Aviv University when he had the idea to form a

digital sports reference company - the initials SEA stand for "Sports Electronic Archiving." And with the 100th anniversary

of the modern games coming up, what better sporting event to start off with?

 

Rozov joined up with Tal Barnoach, 32, a computer-industry executive who had been working at Karmiel-based CDI,

Israel's largest CD-pressing facility. Along with a couple of silent, but well-funded partners, they contacted the Olympics

Committee and told them of their plan.

 

Initially, the IOC was hesitant. It was late 1993, CD-ROM's potential had not been proven, and there were no sports CDs at

all. On top of this, the IOC is a traditionally conservative group. But Rozov and Barnoach kept hammering away.

 

Eventually, news of what they were trying to do leaked out to some of the Olympics' major sponsors, including IBM and

Time Warner, and companies thousands of times SEA's size entered the bidding fray. At the end of the day it emerged that

SEA had the momentum - and the hutzpa - to press on, producing demo after demo, until it finally succeeded.

 

Olympic Gold is a major technical and artistic achievement, sporting an interactive multimedia database of all 16,000

Olympics medal winners of the past 100 years. The product features over 1,000 pages of original, extensively linked text,

1,700 pictures, and more than an hour of video. A hundred Olympic "legends" receive special multimedia biographies.

 

In addition, a Rule Book presents over 100 short animated explanations on how each sport is performed. Different sports

get special treatment: The badminton section, for example, includes a three-dimensional model showing how a racket is

built.

 

Olympic Gold was released to considerable critical acclaim. It won first prize in the reference category at the Milia

multimedia show at this year's Cannes festival. It also won the Invision Award from New Media magazine in the US; the

best sports title award from UK-based CD-ROM Magazine, and Best Foreign Title award in Greece.

 

SUCCESS WITH the IOC was only half the battle in getting the CD-ROM to market and keeping the company afloat. SEA

created the program all in custom C++ code, and costs were high - upward of $1 million. The seed money came from

Rozov, Barnoach and cousins Ron Grodeki and Guy Rubinstein. Once the Olympic deal was in place, Israeli firm Ampa

Investment put in another $600,000. SEA then went courting international distributors in search of advances.

 

That didn't turn out to be too tough. In North America, Olympic Gold is distributed by Discovery Channel Multimedia, the

CD-ROM arm of the big cable programmer. In Europe, Latin America, Australia and South Africa, the BMG conglomerate

handles distribution (the product is produced in English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese). In Japan, Softbank (the

new owner of the big Comdex computer show) is in charge, and in Israel, Hed Arzi brings the product to market.

 

In all, Olympic Gold is available in 52 countries around the world. The multilingual versions are available for PCs; a Mac

version exists only for the English product.

 

Sales have been equally impressive. In a business where 30,000 units of a reference title can be considered a smash hit,

Rozov says Olympic Gold has sold over 200,000 units worldwide (the US suggested retail price is $39.95).

 

And sales should get an extra boost this week. At the Olympiad itself, the product will be ubiquitous - appearing

prominently at the Centennial Park Superstore as well as Coke City - with Rozov and Barnoach manning the PCs.

 

As a direct result of the company's achievements, SEA went public seven weeks ago on the London-based AIM (Alternative

Investment Market) Exchange, raising $3.3 million net. Shares closed at 73p (NIS3.57). The company now employs 37

people in well-appointed offices in the Nahlat Yitzhak area of Tel Aviv.

 

While most of SEA's business is overseas, the company is active at home as well, planning Israel's first-ever interactive

conference this October. Sponsored by the Israel Multimedia Forum (of which SEA is a founding member) along with

People and Computers magazine, Interactive Israel 96 will showcase top local and foreign developers at the Tel Aviv

Fairgrounds. SEA's Barnoach, appropriately, will be chairing the session, Successful Multimedia Case Studies.

 

So what's next for SEA? The company just released its second Olympic product a few weeks ago. Using the same

programming backbone as in Olympic Gold, the new title, Paralympic Spirit, is the first CD-ROM dealing with paraplegic

Olympics. And once this year's Olympics have come to a close, SEA will be producing a special-edition double CD which

will include multimedia highlights of the 1996 Games along with all the new 1996 data integrated into the existing CD's

database.

 

The company has now signed he exclusive multimedia license to represent the NBA's 50-year celebration. With such a

record, it does not look like SEA will be taking a time-out at any point soon.

 

The writer is a Jerusalem-based multimedia consultant.