Israel’s Paralympic medal count rises to nine

by Jacob Gurvis

(JTA) – In June, Israeli wheelchair tennis player Guy Sasson reached the pinnacle of his career as he captured the quad singles title at the 2024 French Open in Paris, his first career Grand Slam win.

Three months later, at the same stadium, Sasson achieved another career milestone, winning his first-ever Paralympic medal, a bronze in the wheelchair tennis quad singles tournament and Israel’s ninth at the Games.

Sasson, 44, beat Turkey’s Ahmet Kaplan 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 on Thursday in the bronze medal match to nab Israel’s ninth medal at the Paralympics. Sasson had won his first-round and quarterfinal matches before losing in the semifinal to Sam Schroder of the Netherlands.

After his French Open win, Sasson said his title “belongs to Israel,” which had just learned that four hostages had been rescued in a military operation from Gaza. His bronze came days after Israel was thrown into turmoil and mourning when the bodies of six hostages were recovered from Gaza.

​​“It was a match full of emotion and full of energy, and I imagine that it will set in soon that I’m an Olympic medalist,” Sasson told the Israeli news site Sport5 after his win. “If I managed to make people watching at home a little happy, especially the families of the fallen and the hostages, if this hope and this joy can give them a small smile on their faces, then I think we’ve done our part.”

Sasson, from the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan, was paralyzed from the knees down after a snowboarding accident in France in 2015. He started playing wheelchair tennis in 2018 and won ​​the Israel Wheelchair Tennis Championship the following year.

Israel’s women’s goalball team won silver at the Paris Paralympics on Thursday, the country’s first Paralympic medal in a team sport since 1988.

The team fell 8-3 to Turkey in the gold medal game. Lihi Ben David, who had served as one of Israel’s Paralympic flag bearers alongside Oct. 7 survivor and wheelchair tennis player Adam Berdichevsky, played with a broken finger she had sustained during the team’s 2-1 victory over China in the semifinals.

The squad had beaten Brazil in pool play before losing to both Turkey and China in that stage. Israel then beat Canada 5-1 in the quarterfinal on Tuesday before its victory over China to earn a spot in Thursday’s gold medal match.

Goalball is a handball-style sport for athletes with vision impairment in which teams of three attempt to throw a ball embedded with bells into their opponents’ goal.

Israel made its goalball debut at the 2016 Paralympics and had never made it to a medal match before Thursday. The silver medal is Israel’s first in a team sport since its men’s volleyball team won silver in 1988.

While political demonstration is prohibited on the field of play at the Paralympics, subtler references such as hair accessories have not run afoul of the rules. Several members of the goalball team wore yellow ribbons in their hair during the semifinal match, a sign of solidarity with Israeli hostages, according to the Times of Israel. And during the Olympics last month, Israeli silver medalist judoka Inbar Lanir also wore a yellow scrunchie, telling an Israeli news outlet, “Those who understand it, will understand.”

The goalball team features Ben David, 28, Elham Mahamid, 34, Noa Malka, 21, Gal Hamrani, 31, Or Mizrahi, 31, and Roni Ohayon, 25.

“I think it’s a huge honor,” Malka told Israel’s Sport5 broadcaster after the team’s semifinal win. “The situation in Israel is always on our minds throughout the tournament. I’m so proud of the team and of the girls, I’m proud to be a part of this thing… We knew the whole time what we were capable of, and today we proved it.”

As Israeli Paralympic rower Shahar Milfelder won her first career medal on September 1, she was thinking about the families of the six newly confirmed dead hostages.

“We had in mind to give pride to the country,” Milfelder said, according to the Israeli news site Mako. “I cried in the morning from the hard news and now I cry from the good news and send the biggest hug I can to the families of the abducted and to all the citizens of the State of Israel.”

Milfelder and her rowing partner, Saleh Shahin, took bronze in the PR2 mixed double sculls. Milfelder, 26, a native of Moshav Beit Yitzchak in Israel, was diagnosed with a rare and serious form of bone cancer at 15 and had part of her pelvis removed.

Shahin, 41, is a Druze Israeli who was injured in a 2005 terrorist attack while serving in the Israeli army. The medal was also his first.

“It’s a great honor to represent my country, but it’s also a huge responsibility,” Shain told the Jewish Chronicle before the Games. “I hope to do so in the most deserving and honorable way, especially in this difficult period after Oct. 7. It is my goal to show the world how strong we are.”

On Saturday August 31, two-time gold medalist swimmer Mark Malyar won bronze in the men’s 100-meter backstroke S8, his fourth career Paralympic medal and second bronze. Malyar, 24, who was born with cerebral palsy, finished 1.84 seconds behind the Spanish gold medalist and just 0.39 seconds behind the Japanese silver medalist.

On Sunday, two days after winning a gold medal and setting a Paralympic record in the men’s 100-meter freestyle S4, swimmer Ami Dadaon, 23, took silver in the men’s 150-meter individual medley SM4, finishing seven and a half seconds behind the gold medalist from the Neutral Paralympic Athletes delegation, which includes athletes from Russia and Belarus.

Also on Sunday, four-time Paralympic rower Moran Samuel won her third career Paralympic medal and first-ever gold, in the PR1 women’s single sculls. Samuel, 42, suffered a spinal stroke in 2006, paralyzing her lower body.

On Tuesday Sept. 3, Dadaon won his third career medal and second gold after finishing first in the men’s 200-meter freestyle S4, an event in which he set the world and Paralympic records at the Tokyo Games. Dadaon, who has cerebral palsy, now owns six career Paralympic medals, including four golds.

Israeli martial artist Asaf Yasur had won Israel’s first Paris medal Aug. 29 in taekwondo. As of September 5, Israel has won nine Paralympic medals.