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Israeli contenders rake in international gold medals

From martial arts and rhythmic gymnastics to windsurfing, chess and even synthetic biology, Israelis had a golden November.

Israeli judoka Peter Paltchik was crowned European Judo Champion. Nov. 21, 2020. Source: Facebook.
Israeli judoka Peter Paltchik was crowned European Judo Champion. Nov. 21, 2020. Source: Facebook.

Judoka Peter Paltchik, 28, was crowned European Judo Champion on Nov. 21 in Prague. Tal Flicker won the silver medal.

Israeli windsurfer Yoav Cohen, 21, won the 2020 European Windsurfing Champion, held in Portugal on Nov. 24.

Shahar Zubari, a member of Israel’s Olympic sailing team, won silver, as did Israeli teammate Katy Spychakov in the women’s category. This was Zubari’s fifth European Championship medal. Zubari (also spelled Tzuberi) also won the bronze medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Taekwondo warrior Avishag Samberg, 19, won a gold medal in the European Clubs Championship in Croatia on Nov. 25. Nimrod Krivishkiy won a silver medal, while Ori Patishi and Alon Katz won bronzes.

Artistic gymnast Linoy Ashram, 21, took home the gold medal in the all-around competition at the European Championships in Kiev, Ukraine, on Nov. 29.

It was the first all-around European gold in Ashram’s career; she won the all-around silver in 2018 and the all-around bronze twice. Ashram was a gold medalist in two events at the 2019 European Championships, and is considered a top contender for an Olympic medal in 2021.

Linoy Ashram. Credit: European Gymnastics (https://www.europeangymnastics.com/).
Israeli artistic gymnast Linoy Ashram. Credit: European Gymnastics (www.europeangymnastics.com).

The Israeli rhythmic gymnastics team also earned its first all-around gold medal at the European Championships, for a stunning hoops and clubs routine by Ofir Dayan, Yana Kremernco, Juliana Tilgin, Shai Ben Ruby, Bar Shpushnikov and Karin Waxman.

And junior team member Daria Atamanov won a gold medal for her performance in the clubs’ event.

Israeli chess grandmaster Evgeny Postny, 39, won first place in an online international chess championship, besting 89 chess players from 20 countries.

And the sTAUbility team from Tel Aviv University won the gold medal in the “Best Software Tool” category at the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition) virtual world championship in synthetic biology. The 12-member sTAUbility team is led by Professor Tamir Tuller, head of the Laboratory of Computational, Systems and Synthetic Biology, and captained by Karin Sionov.

Judoka Inbar Lanir was named European Judo Champion in Poreč, Croatia on Nov. 12 in the under-23 category; Maya Goshen won the silver medal.

This article was first published by Israel21C.

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