Eleven Jewish athletes to watch at the 2024 Paris Olympics
From Canada, the US and Australia, Jewish athletes are competing in wrestling, paddling, fencing, shooting, beach volleyball and more at the Summer Games
JTA — There are veterans, like an Australian gold medalist canoe paddler, and newcomers, like the youngest American female wrestler ever.
And there are athletes competing in events from fencing to beach volleyball to racewalking to air pistol shooting.
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are around the corner, running from July 26 through August 11, and dozens of Jewish athletes will be among the estimated 10,500 competitors representing roughly 200 countries in 329 events across 32 sports.
Here are 11 Jewish athletes competing for the US, Australia and Canada to watch out for at the games.
Amit Elor, youngest female wrestler in US Olympic history
Amit Elor, whose parents are Israeli, is making her Olympic debut with the US wrestling team. She is the youngest female wrestler in history to represent the US at the Games.
At only 20, Elor is already a two-time world champion. She has also won gold medals at the 2023 Pan American Championships, the 2022 and 2023 U23 World Championships and at three consecutive Junior World Championships from 2021 through 2023.
Elor’s 2022 World Championship win, which came when she was 18, made her the youngest senior world champion in US history. She currently ranks No. 1 in the US in the 68-kilogram weight class, the group in which she will compete in Paris.
Canoe paddler Jessica Fox — and her younger sister, Noemi
Aussie Jessica Fox, who is regarded as the greatest individual paddler of all time, is back for her fourth Olympics, where she’ll look to build on her collection of medals — one gold, one silver and two bronze.
Fox, 30, won her Olympic gold in the canoe slalom in the Tokyo Games, becoming the first-ever woman to win gold in the event. Fox had been among the athletes pushing for the canoe slalom event to be opened to women, which happened in Tokyo.
Fox’s Jewish mother and coach, Myriam Jerusalmi, won bronze in the K-1 (single kayak) slalom competition for France at the 1996 Olympics. Her father, Richard Fox, paddled for Britain at the 1992 Olympics. Her younger sister Noemi, 27, is making her Olympics debut in the women’s kayak cross event, which is being held for the first time in Paris.
Nick Itkin and his fellow Jewish fencing stars
Fencing has quietly become a sport dominated by Jewish athletes in recent years, a trend led by Los Angeles native Nick Itkin, currently ranked as the No. 2 men’s foil fencer in the world. He was previously No. 1.
Itkin, 24, won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics to go along with a number of other recent medals and championships at major international fencing tournaments, as well as two NCAA titles. After winning a silver medal at the 2023 World Fencing Championships, Itkin became the first US man, and third US fencer overall, to win individual medals at back-to-back world championships.
Itkin is joined on the US fencing team by Eli Dershwitz, the No. 3-ranked saber fencer in the world and a two-time Olympian who won gold at the 2023 World Championships in saber — becoming the first American man to do so. Dershwitz, 28, is the grandson of Holocaust survivors and a two-time Maccabiah Games gold medalist.
On the women’s side, Maia Weintraub, the No. 13-ranked woman foil fencer in the world, is a two-time US national champion with several gold medals at fencing World Cups, the 2019 European Maccabi Games and in the NCAA. Weintraub, 21, was an alternate at the Tokyo Olympics.
Sarah Levy, US rugby player reaching the pinnacle of her sport
San Diego native Sarah Levy had never played rugby until her first year of college at Northeastern University. Now she’s representing America on the women’s Olympic rugby team. Levy, who was an active member of San Diego’s Jewish community throughout her childhood, briefly played for the New York Rugby Club in the Women’s Premier League after college, before getting recruited to join the US team in 2018. She eventually joined the US sevens program full-time, where she traveled the world competing in rugby tournaments while also studying to receive her doctorate in physical therapy.
Levy, who has been on every US tournament roster since January, officially sealed her Olympic spot on June 7. She told JTA that it was only after she began telling her friends and family that she was Olympics-bound that the weight of the achievement began to set in.
“To see how excited they were for me, it allowed me to take that step back and really enjoy it and really see the pride that they had for me,” Levy said. “And realize, ‘Oh, this was a huge accomplishment. I don’t need to keep looking at it as checkpoints in my career.’”
Shooter Ada Korkhin, making her Olympic debut
Brookline, Massachusetts, native Ada Korkhin was introduced to air pistol shooting by her Israeli father Yakov when she was 9 years old. A decade later, the 19-year-old is headed to Paris to represent the US in the 25-meter pistol event.
Ada Korkhin is #Paris2024 bound ???? Ada qualified for her first Olympic Games this summer. Congrats Ada ????#MTUSA pic.twitter.com/ttw3ajBeAD
— USA Shooting (@USAShooting) April 29, 2024
Korkhin, a rising sophomore at Ohio State University, won a team gold medal in that event at the 2024 Championship of the Americas Games in Buenos Aires, and silver medals at the 2002 USA Shooting Pistol National Championships as well as the 2022 USA Shooting National Junior Olympic Championships.
After missing the cut at the Olympic trials for Tokyo, she finished second in USA Shooting’s Olympic three-part trials this spring. Korkhin celebrated her bat mitzvah at Temple Sinai in the Boston suburb in 2016.
Jesse Grupper, American rock climbing champion
New Jersey native Jesse Grupper began rock climbing at age 6. Now 27, the top-ranked US men’s lead climber is Paris-bound. Grupper, who graduated from Tufts University in 2019 with a degree in mechanical engineering, won the 2023 Pan American Championships in the combined boulder and lead climbing competitions and earned two first-place finishes at the 2022 International Federation of Sport Climbing World Cup, to go along with a second-place and third-place finish.
Grupper’s grandparents, Ruth and Edward Grupper, helped found the New City Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in Rockland County, New York. Grupper’s family belongs to the Reconstructionist Bnai Keshet synagogue in Montclair, New Jersey, where Grupper celebrated his bar mitzvah. Grupper, who was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis as a teenager, also volunteers to teach rock climbing to children with disabilities.
Jemima Montag, Australian racewalking record-holder
Australian racewalker Jemima Montag returns to the Olympics for the second time, where she will look to improve on her sixth-place finish in the women’s 20-kilometer racewalk event.
Montag, 26, is a two-time gold medalist at the Commonwealth Games and a silver medalist at the 2023 World Athletics Championships. She also holds Australia’s record in the 20-kilometer racewalk. Montag was named Australia’s Outstanding Jewish Junior Sportswoman of the Year in 2013 at age 15.
She is also a full-time medical student at Melbourne University.
Sam Schachter, Canadian beach volleyballer who played with Jewish teammate at Rio 2016
Ontario native Sam Schachter returns to the Olympics, where he and his Jewish beach volleyball teammate Josh Binstock competed in 2016. The Jewish duo won a silver medal with Canada’s indoor volleyball team at the 2013 Maccabiah Games, before becoming the Canadian national champions the following year. They also paired up at the 2015 Pan American Games and the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where they won silver.
Schachter, 34, and his current teammate, Daniel Dearing, also won silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Schachter has coached volleyball at multiple Canadian universities.
Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva, four-time Australian champion in rhythmic gymnastics
At 22 years old, Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva is already a decorated rhythmic gymnast with a number of national and international accolades. Kiroi-Bogatyreva, who was born in New Zealand but grew up in Melbourne, won two bronze medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and a bronze, silver and gold at the 2022 Games in different events. She has competed at five Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships and is a repeat Australian all-around champion, winning in four of the past five years.
Kiroi-Bogatyreva, who won five bronze medals at the 2022 Maccabiah Games in Israel, has also been recognized by her local Jewish community, earning numerous honors from the local affiliates Maccabi Victoria and Maccabi Australia, including several “Rising Star” awards. She was inducted into the Maccabi Victoria Hall of Fame in 2022.
Claire Weinstein, rising star for USA Swimming
At only 17 years old, Claire Weinstein is primed for a breakout. The New York native, who celebrated her bat mitzvah at Reform Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains, won a gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest with the US women’s 4 x 200m relay.
Last month, Weinstein clinched her spot in Paris by placing second in the 200-meter freestyle in US Olympic Team trials with a time of 1:56.18, behind only Katie Ledecky, the seven-time Olympic gold medalist. Weinstein had beaten Ledecky in that event at the 2023 US Swimming Championships by only .02 seconds.
At the 2024 Olympics, Weinstein will compete in the 200m and join Ledecky on the 4 x 200m relay team.
Minna Stess, American trailblazing teenage skateboarder
When Minna Stess won a bronze medal in park skateboarding at the 2023 World Championships, she became the first American woman to podium in an Olympic qualifier or World Championship event. Fast forward to this summer, and the 18-year-old, who is the No. 13-ranked female park skateboarder in the world, is headed to the Olympics.
Stess, a native of Petaluma, California, started skating as a child and was winning competitions by the age of 8. She joined the USA Skateboarding Women’s Park National Team in 2019 and was an alternate at the 2020 Olympics, when the sport made its Olympic debut.
Stess grew up celebrating Hanukkah and Passover with her grandparents, according to J. The Jewish News of Northern California. “We’re not religious, but Minna very much understands the culture,” her father, Andrew Stess said. “She understands where she comes from.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
