{"id":611399,"date":"2026-09-10T04:28:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T04:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/611399\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T04:28:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T04:28:23","slug":"these-were-israels-biggest-sports-moments-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/611399\/","title":{"rendered":"These were Israel’s biggest sports moments this year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"<\/a>\"<\/p>\n

(Illustration: Leo Attelman)<\/p>\n

Not just a reserve team, but the future \/\/ Ra\u2019anan Weiss<\/p>\n

Silver medal for Israel\u2019s U20 women at EuroBasket<\/p>\n

The remarkable run in Lithuania delivered, above all, a statement: Israeli women\u2019s basketball has a young, talented and, most importantly, hungry generation capable of looking Europe\u2019s powerhouses straight in the eye.<\/p>\n

\"\u05d2\u05dc<\/a>\"\u05d2\u05dc<\/p>\n

Much more than a medal. Israel\u2019s women\u2019s U20 national team celebrates<\/p>\n

(Photo: FIBA Photos)<\/p>\n

On one hand, it was a sensational achievement. Only in 2022 did the U20 team return to Division A for the first time after a 15-year absence. In total, the team had played in Division A just six times and, of course, had never advanced beyond the EuroBasket quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, this medal is the culmination of a process, the product of years of proper development in Israeli women\u2019s basketball. Two years earlier, Gal Raviv and her teammates reached the European Championship semifinals with the girls\u2019 national team and qualified for the World Cup. The senior women\u2019s national team also completed two perfect EuroBasket qualifying campaigns over the past two summers.<\/p>\n

Raviv finished as the tournament\u2019s leading scorer, assist leader and top-ranked player by efficiency, including a huge 37-point performance against Poland in the quarterfinals, and there is not a single WNBA scout who has not marked her name down.<\/p>\n

Yes, it ended with a loss to formidable France in the final, but the silver medal shone just like gold.<\/p>\n

One of the greatest in the world, ever \/\/ Eliasaph Deuel <\/p>\n

Artem Dolgopyat wins European title for third time<\/p>\n

We have long since come to regard Artem Dolgopyat\u2019s medals as a given. He is the most reliable rock in Israeli sports. The podium is the axiom. Any other result feels like a malfunction, a statistical deviation.<\/p>\n

But in reality, a historic phenomenon is taking shape before our eyes, and it is anything but ordinary.<\/p>\n

In his modest way, Dolgopyat is establishing himself as one of the greatest floor exercise gymnasts in history \u2014 not in Israel, in the world \u2014 and after the Los Angeles Olympics, he may even claim the title of greatest of them all.<\/p>\n

\"\u05d3\u05d5\u05dc\u05d2\u05d5\u05e4\u05d9\u05d0\u05d8\"<\/a>\"\u05d3\u05d5\u05dc\u05d2\u05d5\u05e4\u05d9\u05d0\u05d8\"<\/p>\n

Arten Dolgopyat is establishing himself as one of the greatest floor exercise gymnasts in history<\/p>\n

(Photo: Denis Vakhrushev, courtesy of the Israel Gymnastics Association)<\/p>\n

Romanian gymnast Marian Dragulescu was crowned world champion on floor four times, but never won Olympic gold. Dolgopyat did. Russia\u2019s Nikolai Andrianov was a two-time Olympic champion on floor, but never won the world title in that event. Dolgopyat did.<\/p>\n

Israel has had outstanding athletes before, but never an athlete with such a strong case for GOAT status. At least based on the record alone, another Olympic gold medal in two years would make Dolgopyat a legitimate candidate for that weighty title \u2014 the greatest floor gymnast of all time.<\/p>\n

Dolgopyat missed the most recent World Championships in Indonesia for political reasons, but his European Championship victory a month ago<\/a> offered proof to everyone that nothing has changed as far as he is concerned.<\/p>\n

Instead of greeting his accomplishments with indifference because we have become accustomed to excellence, perhaps we should lift our eyes for a moment and look directly at the history being written before us, quietly and humbly.<\/p>\n

An event bursting with meaning \/\/ Yair Kattan<\/p>\n

Deni Avdija\u2019s All-Star appearance<\/p>\n

Between injuries and the complications of creating three balanced teams for the All-Star Game, the NBA wrestled with the problem in February and decided that, to even things out, Karl-Anthony Towns would move from one of the two U.S. teams to the World team. He is American of Dominican descent, and for him it did not really matter. Whatever flag works, I\u2019m happy.<\/p>\n

That is the difference between Avdija\u2019s participation and the selection of others.<\/p>\n

Many players are happy simply to be part of the occasion, for the exciting career milestone and the feeling that they belong to the elite of the sport. But that is only about them.<\/p>\n

\"\u05d3\u05e0\u05d9<\/a>\"\u05d3\u05e0\u05d9<\/p>\n

Deni dunks at the All-Star Game<\/p>\n

(Photo: Jae C. Hong\/AP)<\/p>\n

He did it with elegance <\/a>and, at age 25, knew how to handle the emotional burden and the need, to a large extent, to become a face of the fight against antisemitism.<\/p>\n

Enough with the pathos \u2014 in another moment you\u2019ll be able to dip an apple into this text.<\/p>\n

Strip away everything around it, and this was simply a phenomenal sporting achievement. Avdija deservedly found himself among the 24 best basketball players in the world, at a time of unprecedented depth and breadth of talent in the league.<\/p>\n

He is an example of an elite athlete who improves every year, someone who played for two bad teams and, after the first did not want him to help it improve, took the second from nowhere into the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Illustration: Leo Attelman) Not just a reserve team, but the future \/\/ Ra\u2019anan Weiss Silver medal for Israel\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-611399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}