Athletes pack memories, medals at Maccabiah’s end

In hotels all over Israel, suitcases were packed with athletic equipment and, for the lucky winners, medals as the 19th Maccabiah came to its official end Tuesday night.

From lawn-bowling to ice hockey, swimming to judo, representatives from over 70 countries enjoyed two weeks of competition — along with social gatherings, tours of the country and parties that carried on well into the night, in what some view as “the most important Jewish and Zionist event in the world.”

For the 9,000 athletes, who were divided into three age-based categories and competed in dozens of sporting events, the social side was important, no doubt.

The Australian and Danish delegations spent time at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial; athletes from the US climbed the snake path at Masada to watch the sunrise and the delegation from Guinea-Bissau threw a party to celebrate reaching its charity fundraising goals.

But more importantly, for 10 days, players in the under-18 juniors, 18-35 Open (men and women) and the over-35 masters’ tournaments did their best to earn gold, as did a smaller number of athletes with physical disabilities who competed in the first-ever para-Maccabiah events.

Host country Israel won the most medals, with a total of 411 podium appearances, including 150 first-place finishes. The USA’s 1,200 strong-delegation came in second in the hardware count, hauling in 196 medals. The Canadian, Australian and South African delegations rounded out the top five.

In the open category, which many regard as the main event, Israel’s Maccabiah delegation came away with over 200 medals. Second-place US earned 139 medals, and the third-place Canadian delegation finished with 20 — including seven gold medals.

The bottom of the list includes a number of countries with only one medal to show for their efforts, but for first-time delegations from Cuba and Guinea-Bissau, those lone medals were a reason for much celebration.

The Israeli delegation dominated the junior competition, winning 44 gold medals, while the United States finished with a distant 27 gold medals. Surprisingly the 600-plus Canadian delegation did not earn a gold medal in the junior competition. The nation with the third largest amount of gold medals was Hungary, with three.

Also the masters’ medal count was lead by the blue-and-white delegation, who won 40 medals. Once again the US came in second, earning 11 medals. Brazil finished third in the masters category, with the athletes taking six medals — including three gold ones — back home with them.

For the first time in the Maccabiah’s history, Paralympic competitions were held. The only two nations to win gold were the United States with four and Israel with six. Hungary, Hong Kong and Australia also took home medals.

Ilan Ben Zion and Raphael Gellar contributed to this report.