Jewish, Israeli Paralympians Bring Home 13 Medals
More than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual, and intellectual disabilities competed from Aug. 29 to Sept. 8 at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
A summer in which more than 20 Jewish athletes captured a grand total of 18 Olympic medals concluded with 15 Jewish and Israeli Paralympians capturing 13 more medals at the Paris Paralympics.
It was one of the true feel-good sports stories of 2024: more than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual, and intellectual disabilities competed from Aug. 29 to Sept. 8 at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. And when the games culminated in an aesthetically stunning closing ceremony at rain-drenched Stade de France Stadium in Saint-Denis, Israel, headlined by swimmer Ami Dadaon, took home 10 medals (four gold, four bronze, and two silver) while U.S. track and field star Ezra Frech secured his first-ever medals, a pair of golds on back-to-back days no less. In addition to Frech’s brilliant showing, American table tennis standout Ian Seidenfeld followed up his gold medal-winning Tokyo Paralympics by earning a bronze in the men’s singles MS6 competition.
When Dadaon, a 23-year-old Haifa native who overcame cerebral palsy to start swimming at the age of six, earned his bronze in the men’s 50-meter freestyle S4 competition (37.11 seconds) on the third-to-last day of the Paralympics, Israel finished with the aforementioned 10 medals, eclipsing its total of nine from the Tokyo Paralympics. It was the first time since the 2004 Athens Games that Israel accounted for a double-digit Paralympic medal grand total. Since the inception of the Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960, Israel has been awarded 394 medals.
Along with his bronze medal-worthy performance in the 50-meter freestyle – an event in which he had entered these Paralympics with the world record before it was taken over by Canada’s Sebastian Massabie – Dadaon won gold in both the men’s 100-meter freestyle S4 and the men’s 200-meter freestyle S4 and took home a silver in the men’s 150-meter individual medley SM4.
Other Israeli medalists include rower Moran Samuel, who snagged her first-ever Paralympic gold; martial artist Asaf Yasur, recipient of gold in the men’s 58-kilogram K44 taekwondo competition; the six-member Israeli women’s goalball team consisting of Lihi Ben David, 28, Gal Hamrani, 31, Elham Mahamid, 34, Noa Malka, 21, Or Mizrahi, 31, and Roni Ohayon, 25, (goalball is a handball-esque sport for athletes with visual impairments); swimmer Mark Malyar, who collected a bronze in the men’s 100-meter backstroke S8 and whose brother, Ariel, also competed in France; bronze medal-winning wheelchair tennis player Guy Sasson; and rowers Shahar Milfelder and Saleh Shahin who together captured their first Paralympic medals in the PR2 mixed double scull.
Over on the American side, Frech, who came into the world missing his left knee and shinbone and with only one finger on his left hand, earned his first-ever gold medal by posting a time of 12.06 seconds in the men’s 100-meter T63 final. “I crossed the line. I had no idea, looked up, saw my name first,” the 19-year-old American told NBC after he edged his closest competitor, Denmark’s Daniel Wagner, by merely 0.02 seconds. “Not what I was expecting, but, damn, am I hyped.”
The very next day, Frech followed up his first-ever gold by nabbing another one in the men’s high jump by clearing a height of 1.94 meters. In doing so, he established a new Paralympic record, one that was just shy of his own world record.
After his banner performances, Frech, who has his sights set on being regarded as the greatest Paralympian of all time and bagging gold in the long jump, high jump and 100-meter sprint (the “triple crown”) in the 2028 Paralympics in his Los Angeles hometown, remarked, “I would trade in every medal, every world record, every national championship title if it meant I could normalize disability in the process. That’s what I’m about. I just know that those accolades are a step to reach that larger goal.”
Meanwhile, the United States was also supported by one of the country’s elite table tennis players in Seidenfeld, who has been coached by his father Mitchell Seidenfeld, a three-time Paralympian (1992, 1996 and 2008) and four-time medalist, since he was five years old. During the 2021 Tokyo Games, Seidenfeld, a native of Lakeville, Minn., who was born with a bone growth disorder known as Pseudoachondroplasia dwarfism, bested the No. 1 ranked player in the world for the gold medal. This summer, the 23-year-old advanced in the round of 16 and quarterfinal matches in men’s table tennis singles MS6 before falling in the semifinal to Italy’s Matteo Parenzan. By virtue of reaching the semifinals, Seidenfeld received his second Paralympic medal in three years.
“I worked really hard to win both of these medals,” Seidenfeld, a University of Minnesota alum, told teamusa.com. “So, the medals are great. But I just appreciate how I persevered through a lot of challenges throughout the last three years. And then I know I’ll persevere through the next four more.”
Over the next four years, the Summer Paralympics will resume in Los Angeles in 2028 while the next iteration of the Paralympics, the 2026 Winter Paralympics, is slated to take place in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, in March 2026.
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