MAZEL TOV & SHAVUA TOV! Avishag Semberg wins Israel’s first medal of the Tokyo Olympics as she takes home a Bronze in Taekwondo!

What a great moment for Israel and so early in the Games! After winning her preliminary round bout, Semberg fell to the eventual goal medal winner Panipak Wongpattanakit from Thailand. However, Semberg won her repechage match up and then beat Rukiye Yıldırım from Turkey to capture the Bronze medal.

Semberg spoke about the accomplishment, “I have won an Olympic medal at the age 19. I worked very hard the entire way to this point. I was able to withstand the pressure and I believed it would happen. I knew the draw was very not an easy one and I said to myself, ‘so what if I’m the youngest?’ I will give everything that I have. I hope that this is not my last medal. It feels like a dream.”

Over in Artistic Gymnastics – Alex Shatilov and Artem Dolgopyat both attempted to qualify for the Finals and that’s exactly what Dolgopyat did finishing in first place in the floor exercise with a score of 15.20. The finals will take place later on in the Olympics with Dolgopyat in prime position to take a medal. Shatilov finished his floor exercise with a score of 13.5 which was not enough to move on to the next round and could have potentially ended his Olympic career after competing in his fourth Olympics after advancing to the finals in 2008 and 2012.

In Judo, Shira Rishony (-48kg) was able to make her way to the bronze medal bout but fell to Daria Bilodid from the Ukraine. All in all a 5th place finish for Rishony was an excellent showing.

Misha Zilberman, Israel’s representative in Men’s Badminton defeated B. Sai Praneeth in group stage to get the 32 year old’s Olympics off on the right foot.

In the pool, Anastasia Gorbenko broke her own record in the 100m Butterfly with a time of 58.23 to finish 18th overall but the result was not good enough to advance to the next round. The same was also true for Ron Polonsky in 400m Individual Medley with a time of 4:21:50 to finish third in his heat and also set a personal best but couldn;t punch his ticket to the next stage.

The schedule for Israelis in action on Sunday July 25 is a busy one!
1:00 Surfing – Anat Lelior Round 1-2
5:00 Judo – Gili Cohen Round of 32
5:00 Judo – Baruch Shamailov Round of 32
6:00 Sailing – Yoav Cohen RS:X Race 1,2,3
6:00 Sailing – Shay Kakon Laser Radial Race 1,2
7:00 Cycling – Omer Shapira Women’s Road Race
7:00 Shooting – Sergy Richter 10m Air Rifle qualification
9:00 Sailing – Katy Spychakov RS:X Race 1,2,3
11:05 Artistic Gymnastics – Lihie Raz Women’s qualification
13:00 Swimming – Anastasia Gorbenko 100m Backstroke qualification and 100m Breaststroke qualification
13:00 Swimming – Yakov Toumarkin 100m Backstroke qualification
13:00 Swimming – Michael Laitarovsky 100 Backstroke qualification
13:22 Swimming – Denis Loktev 200m Freestyle qualification