Jul 6, 2008
dreaming about hosting the Olympic Games
In the long history of Israeli participation in the Olympics, we have seen limited success. Our athletes have won a grand total of 6 medals (4 of them Bronze, 1 Silver and 1 Gold).
Clearly Israeli athletes are not a big threat to turning the sports world on its ear. It is a "White man can't jump" kind of thing. Us Jews just are not made out to be top athletes. Of course there are individual exceptions, but we can never get them all together in the same year or generation, to put together a formidable group to vie for international success.
Our team is so serious, they could not even bother getting their own domain name for their website. Not only that, but their website, the website of the Israel Olympic Committee, does not even work. That is how serious we are about our sports and sports promotion.
Israel does have a representative on the International Olympic Committee, a.k.a the I.O.C. His name is Alex Giladi. Giladi is an Iranian born Israeli. According to his brief Hebrew Wiki page, he was a broadcaster whose career includes having worked the 1972 Munich Games, EuroLeague Basketball Finals, the Eurovision that was in Israel, and many other historic events involving Israel. In 1994 Giladi was elected to the IOC.
Giladi gave an interview to the newspaper "Yisrael HaYom". After all the talk about sports and athletes, Giladi talks about his dream. That would be his dream of Israel hosting the Olympics.
Pinch yourself.
That is right. Giladi dreams of the day Israel will host the Olympics. He understands it is not going to happen anytime soon, and definitely not until after we have signed peace deals with all of our neighbors. Yet Giladi is optimistic that this can be accomplished in time to allow us to host the Olympic Games of 2048 - in honor of Israel's 100th birthday.
He is optimistic that we could pull it off, despite our not even being able to build a bridge properly for the Maccabiah Games. In 1997 a bridge collapsed during the games, plunging a bunch of athletes into the highly polluted Yarkon River, killing four and injuring 60 more.
Giladi says, "If we can get people to realize that there is a deadline, and deadlines cannot be pushed off, we can definitely organize an excellent Olympic Games. There are aspects of life that we excel in, areas in which we are the best in the world."
I am just not sure of the bigger dream is that we can actually host the Olympics, or that we can attain peace with all our neighbors by 2048...
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...or meet a construction deadline!
ReplyDeleteblackbelt has comment of the week rafi...
ReplyDeleteOlympics bring a huge amount of tourism and growth to the economy of that country. But all the jokes of Jewish Olympics and so on, would eventually just get annoying. I mean, how many things can you paint a yarmulka onto?
so far he does, but it is only Sunday...
ReplyDeleteWhen the 'cotw' comes in on Thursday I cannot even remember it to post on Friday, let alone when it comes in on a Sunday!
Security concerns aside, I really doubt that any city in Israel can accomodate the tens of thousands of people that come pouring in from all over the world to attend the Olympic games.
ReplyDeleteraizy - Israel is a small country. They can all be divided up among the different cities. No need for them all to stay in the same place.
ReplyDeleteThat is right. Giladi dreams of the day Israel will host the Olympics. He understands it is not going to happen anytime soon, and definitely not until after we have signed peace deals with all of our neighbors.
ReplyDeleteHuh? Last I checked China has not signed "peace deals" with all of its neighbors, as Taiwan is fairly independent of the mainland, despite Beijing's view that it is a renegade province (instead of an independent nation).
As far as whether Israel could handle it, if Greece could handle it, so could Israel.
We just have to make sure Iran is no longer a threat (nuclear wise) before Israel could host it.
~Darnell