One of Israel’s Olympic medal-winning judokas shared the glory with his mother Monday by presenting her with the bronze medal he won over the weekend at the Tokyo Games.
Peter Paltchick arrived back in the country with the rest of the team to a hero’s welcome.
He later headed over to Sheba Medical Center where his mother, Larissa, works as a nurse in a coronavirus clinic.
Visibly moved, she came out to greet her son and after a warm embrace, Paltchick placed the bronze medal around her neck.
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Paltchik won a bronze in the mixed team contest on Saturday after finishing 7th in the -100 kilo contest last week.
After the team victory, Larissa admitted that she doesn’t usually watch her son’s bouts on live television because it’s “too much pressure.”
In this case, her husband told her to watch a replay of the winning match but closed the windows so that no one would hear her screams of joy, she told Hebrew media.
“I told him that I wanted [the windows] to remain open so that people will hear me scream out of joy and pride, because it is a medal for everyone, Peter won it for all of Israel,” she said Sunday.
So far, Israel has won three medals at the games, including a gold by gymnast Artem Dolgopyat on Monday for his floor routine. It was only the second time that Israel has won a Olympic gold medal.
Avishag Semberg won a bronze medal in the women’s taekwondo -49kg category.
Source: TOI
Notes:
Israel beat Russia on Saturday. The winning squad for the contest was Li Kochman, Inbar Lanir, Peter Paltchick, Raz Hershko, Sagi Muki, Timna Nelson Levy, Shira Rishony, Or Sasson, Baruch Shmailov, Tohar Butbul, and Gili Sharir.
The Israeli judo delegation, though it had expectations of greater success, did not win any other medals at the Olympics.
Israel’s eventual bronze win came just days after unnamed officials in Israel’s delegation to the Tokyo Olympics voiced strong criticism of the country’s judo team.
“This is a huge failure. Conclusions must be drawn as to how this collapse happened at the Olympics,” an unnamed delegation official was quoted as saying by the Ynet news site on Thursday.
“There is something systematic here, it isn’t a one-time failure, and all the judokas lost to inferior rivals,” the official said.
Source: TOI