Paralympics completes season of success for Jewish athletes

JTA – The 2024 Paris Paralympics concluded on Sunday, 8 September, bringing to an end a season full of athletic success for Jewish and Israeli competitors on the international stage.

Weeks after at least 21 Jewish athletes won a total of 18 medals at the Olympics, 15 Jewish and Israeli Paralympians racked up 13 medals of their own.

Israel won 10 medals – four gold, four bronze, and two silver – its first double-digit medal count since the 2004 Athens Games. Swimmer Ami Dadaon led the way with four medals of his own, including two golds. Israel’s victories came as the country weathered tragedy and political upheaval at home.

For the United States, track and field star Ezra Frech enjoyed a breakout performance, winning golds on back-to-back days, the first two medals in a career he told NBC he hoped would make him “the greatest Paralympian of all time”.

Gold medallists

Ami Dadaon: two gold, one silver, one bronze

Dadaon led all Jewish Paralympians by medalling in four of his five events, bringing his career total to seven. Dadaon, 23, won gold in both the men’s 100m freestyle S4 disability class and the men’s 200m freestyle S4. He set a new Paralympic record during heats for the 100m, an event in which he also owns the world record for his disability classification.

Dadaon, a Haifa native who was born with cerebral palsy, also won silver in the men’s 150m individual medley SM4, and bronze in the men’s 50m freestyle S4. Dadaon had entered the 50m competition with the world record, but it was topped in Paris by the gold medallist, Canada’s Sebastian Massabie. In his fifth event, the men’s 50m breaststroke SB3, Dadaon finished fifth.

Ezra Frech: two gold medals

United States track and field standout Ezra Frech won his first-ever Paralympic medals, both gold, in the men’s 100m T63 and the high jump T63. Frech, 19, who was born without a left knee and shinbone and with only one finger on his left hand, captured the 100m gold in dramatic fashion, beating the German silver medallist by two hundredths of a second.

The following day, Frech won gold in the high jump. He had previously broken his own world record in the event during the US Paralympic trials in July. His 1.94m jump in Paris topped the Indian silver medallist by .06m, and set a new Paralympic record. With that jump, Frech was .03m shy of his world record of 1.97m.

After winning two gold medals in Paris, Frech has his sights set even higher for the 2028 Games, which will take place in his hometown of Los Angeles. Frech said he hoped to earn what he calls the “triple crown” – winning gold in the long jump, high jump, and 100m sprint. Frech finished fifth in the long jump in Paris.

Moran Samuel

Israeli rower Moran Samuel captured her first career Paralympic gold, and third medal overall, in the PR1 women’s single sculls. Samuel, 42, suffered a spinal stroke in 2006, paralyzing her lower body. “It’s a privilege to be here in this bubble at the Paralympic Games, and to finish with a gold medal. And to be able to scream the anthem from deep inside me is a moment I’ll never forget in my life,” Samuel told the Israeli broadcaster Sport5 after her win.

Asaf Yasur

Martial artist Asaf Yasur was the first Israeli athlete to medal in Paris, winning a gold in the men’s 58kg K44 taekwondo competition. He defeated Turkish opponent Ali Can Ozcan by a score of 19-12 in the gold medal match after winning his quarterfinal and semifinal matches 23-6 and 16-6, respectively.

Yasur, 22, is a two-time world champion who made his Paralympic debut this summer. Both of Yasur’s hands were amputated when he was 13 years old after an electrocution accident.

Silver medallists

Israel’s women’s goalball team

Israel’s six-member team won a silver medal in women’s goalball, a handball-style sport for visually impaired athletes. The Israeli team fell to Turkey in the gold medal match after beating Canada in the quarterfinal and China in the semifinal. The team included Lihi Ben David, 28; Gal Hamrani, 31; Elham Mahamid, 34; Noa Malka, 21; Or Mizrahi, 31; and Roni Ohayon, 25.

The silver medal is Israel’s first in goalball as well as its first Paralympic medal in a team sport since 1988. 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.

Bronze medallists

Mark Malyar

Israeli swimmer Mark Malyar won his fourth career Paralympic medal in Paris, a bronze in the men’s 100m backstroke S8. Malyar, 24, who was born with cerebral palsy, had won two gold medals and a bronze in Tokyo. Malyar, whose brother, Ariel, also competed in Paris, finished just 1.84 seconds behind the Spanish gold medallist and just 0.39 seconds behind the Japanese silver medallist.

Shahar Milfelder and Saleh Shahin

Israeli rowers Shahar Milfelder and Saleh Shahin paired up to win their first Paralympic medals in the PR2 mixed double sculls. Milfelder, 26, is a native of Moshav Beit Yitzchak in Israel who was diagnosed with a rare and serious form of bone cancer at 15 and had part of her pelvis removed. After their bronze medal win, she said she was thinking about the families of the six hostages who were confirmed dead only hours earlier.

“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 hostages and to all the citizens of the state of Israel.”

Shahin, 41, is a Druze Israeli who was injured in a 2005 terrorist attack while serving in the Israeli army. He called representing Israel “a great honour, but it’s also a huge responsibility.”

Guy Sasson

Just three months after he won his first career Grand Slam at the 2024 French Open, Israeli wheelchair tennis player Guy Sasson returned to the same stadium to win his first career Paralympic medal, a bronze in the wheelchair tennis quad singles tournament. Sasson, 44, beat Turkey’s Ahmet Kaplan 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 in the bronze medal match.

“It was a match full of emotion and energy, and I imagine that it will set in soon that I’m an Olympic medallist,” 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.”

Ian Seidenfeld

American table tennis star Ian Seidenfeld won his second career Paralympic medal in Paris, a bronze in the men’s singles MS6 competition. He had won gold in Tokyo.

Seidenfeld, 23, won his round of 16 and quarterfinal matches before losing in the semifinal. The Lakeville, Minnesota native, who was born with Pseudoachondroplasia dwarfism, is coached by his father Mitchell Seidenfeld, a three-time Paralympian and four-time medallist.