Israeli delegation to the Olympians games in Beijing counting 42 sportsmen (the biggest one ever sent from Israel) traditionally consists of many Russian-speaking sportsmen, who came to Israel since the former Soviet Union opened its borders to the Jewry, or was brought up already in Israel by their Russian-speaking parents on the lap of Soviet sportive tradition.

Many Jewish sportsmen have left the USSR in the ninetieth, immediately after the Soviet government made immigration possible, heading to their ancient middle-eastern homeland, and since then they represent Israel in all the sportive contests around the world. But there were even more Russian-speaking Jews in Israel, who didn’t forget the sportive achievements of their former country and encouraged their children to become the best in Israeli sport, while native born Israelis didn’t see much value in sport activities (except for football and basketball, of course). After all, sport is not a profession: that was the Israeli attitude until the recent years; yet, Russian Jews knew that it isn’t so.

The most famous sportsman in the Israeli delegation is Alexander Averbuch, 32-years old athlete competing in the pole vault on behalf of Israel since 1999, who won bronze and silver medals in World Championship (in 1999 and 2001 respectively) and twice took the first place in European Championships (in 2002 and 2006).

Another one worth special mentioning is Michael Kolganov, flatwater canoer, who was practicing in this field since he was fourteen years old boy in Tashkent. He was brought to Israel in 1995 by Jewish Agency, when he is already 21 years old and since then he won two World Championships (in 1998 and 1999) for 200 metres and in 2000 have made Israel even more proud of him by bringing bronze medal from the Olympic Games in Sydney.

But the majority of the competitors are surprisingly women. Ira Risenson, Veronika Vitenberg, Maria Savenkova, Katerina Pisetskaya and seventeen-years-old Alena Dvornichenko will show their talents at rhythmic gymnastics competitions; Anastasia Glushkova and Inna Yoffe will try to achieve the top at synchronised swimming shows, and Anna Gostomelskaya will participate in swimming competitions of many different lengths and styles (50 metre freestyle, 100 metre freestyle, 100 metre backstroke, 100 metre butterfly).

In light of such impressive presence of immigrants in the Olympic delegation, which number together with the trainers, sportive doctors and psychologists reaches forty five out of total one hundred Israelis leaving for Beijing, the Ministry of Absorption had decided to double the sums of monthly support of the Olympian sportsmen immigrants, that equals now, after the raise, to 5,000 new sheqels (around 1500 US dollars).

Those news were announced to the immigrant sportsmen during the evening in their honour by Erez Khalphon, the general director of Israeli Ministry of Absorption. “By your striving for excellence, by your relentless pursuit of goals’ achievements, by your professionalism and your talents you bring great honour and pride to Israel”, he said.

On the picture (from left to right): Alexander Averbuch, Anna Gostomelskaya and Michael Kolganov.