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Academy A Stop at the
Lab on the Way
to the Olympics

A chance visit to the Technion resulted in a
groundbreaking collaboration between the Faculty and
the Olympic Committee of Israel: The Israeli Olympic
Sports Research Center. The Center seeks to promote
Olympic sports in Israel by applying research-based
findings. Its first study, conducted for the windsurfing
team, has already been crowned with success. Olympic
medalist Yael Arad: “We’ll see the fruits of this effort
starting with the 2024 Olympic Games”

Or Sade

he historic moment arrived on and their appetite for success was whetted.
July 30th, 1992: After 40 years in Sadly, however, we have made little progress
since then. Subsequent Olympic Games produced
T the Olympic wilderness, judoka one or two medals at best, in a handful of sports:
Yael Arad won the silver medal in Windsurfing, kayaking, and judo. Israel has a total
the Barcelona Summer Olympic of nine Olympic medals to date, while Hungary, for
Games, Israel’s first Olympic medal. The next day, example, with a population similar to Israel’s and
judoka Oren Smadja added the second, a bronze a lower GDP, has won 128 medals since Barcelona.
Olympic medal. After these wondrous 24 hours, Cuba, a poor, isolated island state whose
Israeli athletes stopped thinking in terms of population is slightly larger than Israel’s,
participation as the highest form of achievement,

20 | MEgazine | Faculty of Mechanical Engineering