The first official day of the Olympics saw plenty of Israelis in action including in the swimming pool, on the judo mat as well as on the pitch.

In soccer action, Israel fell to Paraguay 4-2 after conceding a pair late goals as the blue-and-white’s chances to advance to the knockout rounds took a severe hit following a draw to Mali in their opening game in Group D. Next up for Head Coach Guy Luzon’s squad is their third and final group game against Japan on Tuesday for a chance to move into the elimination portion of the tournament.

Reigning Olympic champion in the Artistic Gymnastics Floor Exercise Artem Dolgoyat advanced to the final at the Paris Games where he will be able to defend his crown, however, his qualification was in the balance all the way to the end of the opening round. Dolgopyat was in the first group of gymnasts who attempted to finish in the top 8 overall in order to punch their ticket to the final, but the Israeli finished in 6th place with a score of 14.466 and needed to wait through two rounds of gymnasts to see if he would move on or not.

No one from the second group finished above Dolgopyat but the silver medalist from Japan Rayderley Zapata finished in third and bumped the Israeli down to 7th place and that is where he would end the qualification round and earn a berth in the final.

Dolgopyat also competed in the Pommel Horse where he finished in 46th place with a score of 13.00 which wasn’t good enough to advance to the final.

Israeli Judokas did not have a successful day on the mat as Shira Rishony was eliminated in her -48kg opening bout to Abiba Abuzhakynova from Kazakstan while Yam Wolczak in the -60kg category won his first bout over Arnold Kisoka from the Democratic Republic of the Congo but fell in his next matchup to the current world champion from Georgia Giorgi Sardalashvili.

Over in the pool, Ron Polonsky advanced to the semifinals of the 100m breaststroke and set an Israeli record of exactly 1 minute good enough for 16th overall. However, that’s far as he would go after finishing in 8th place in his semifinal heat with a time of 1:00.37.

The Israel men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team of Tomer Frankel, Gal Cohen Groumi, Denis Loktev and Alexey Glivinskiy finished 6th in their heat with a time of 3:15.41 which wasn’t good enough to advance to the final.

In Badminton, Misha Zilberman fell in his matchup with Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen 2-1.

On Sunday, Judokas Baruch Shmailov and Gefen Primo will be in action as well as Fencer Yuval Freilich from Neve Daniel along with Anastasia Gorbenko in the pool and windsurfer Sharon Kantor.

July 28, 2024
Artistic Gymnastics: Women’s qualifications: Lihie Raz
Judo: Men’s -66kg preliminary rounds: Baruch Shmailov
Judo: Women’s -52kg preliminary rounds: Gefen Primo
Fencing: Men’s epee individual table of 64: Yuval Freilich
Swimming: Men’s 200m freestyle heats: Denis Loktev
Swimming: Men’s 100m backstroke heats: Adam Mara’ana
Swimming: Women’s 100m breaststroke heats: Anastasia Gorbenko
Swimming: Women’s 200m freestyle heats: Lea Polonsky
Shooting: 10m air rifle men’s qualification: Sergey Richter
Sailing: Women’s windsurfing: Sharon Kantor
Sailing: Men’s windsurfing: Tom Reuveny