Up-and-down day for Israel's blue-and-white in Paris Olympics

Israeli Olympians were in action once again on the judo mat, in the pool and out at sea on Monday as the blue-and-white scored mixed results across the board.

In Tahiti, Anat Lelior moved into the third round of women’s Surfing after defeating Spaniard Janire Gonzalez Etxabarri 11.00 to 2.80 in their second-round matchup. Lelior will now face Tyler Wright from Australia, who is not only the two-time World Champion in 2016 and 2017 but also finished ahead of Lelior in Round 1.

Over on the Judo mat, Israelis had yet another disappointing day as both Tohar Butbul and Timna Nelson Levy were eliminated early on in their respective competitions.

In Men’s -73kg, Butbol advanced automatically to the round-of-16 after his Algerian opponent Redouane Messaoud Dris was disqualified for failing the weigh-in which raised the ire of the Israel Olympic Committee.

However, despite the walkover, Butbul was unable to take advantage of the situation as he fell to World Champion Hidayat Heydarov from Azerbaijan after collecting three yellow cards, the third coming in Golden Score.

Nelson Levy, on the women’s side of the bracket in -57kg action, defeated Kaja Kajzer of Slovenia in the round-of-32 but came up short in Golden Score to World Champion Mimi Huh from South Korea after collecting three yellow cards.

"I gave all of my heart but it wasn’t enough,” Nelson Levy said. “My heart is broken, you can’t go back in time. I feel that I can beat them all, probably today was not my day even though I felt amazing. The team prepared me so well, it was amazing. I’ve been preparing myself for this for my entire life. I need more time to digest it. On any given day, any one of the judokas can be on the podium. I know with all my heart that I can beat everyone, but today things just didn’t work out.”

Nelson Levy also spoke about the situation back home.

“I can only say one thing – during these days when the country is going through such difficulties, I along with the entire delegation want to give a little comfort, a little smile in our hearts. Although my loss is painful and this sport is cruel, the people of Israel are going through some very tough times. You have to take things in proportion with this painful loss. I’m sorry that I couldn’t make the podium today. I know how much they love me and how much they wanted this for me.”

Former world champion Sagi Muki and Gili Sharir will be competing in judo on Tuesday.

Israel makes a splash but does not advance

Over in the pool, Anastasia Gorbenko finished in 10th place overall in the semifinals of the women’s 400m Individual Medley and did not advance to the finals in what was considered to be one of the Israeli’s specialties. On Sunday, Gorbenko had advanced to the semifinals of the women’s 100m Breaststroke with a time of 1:06.22, but decided not to participate in the next round in order to conserve energy for the 400m IM, which unfortunately didn’t help her performance.

“I felt pretty good,” Gorbenko began after failing to move into the finals. “We’ve been working on my back recently so that I can hold a faster speed with less power and I paid for that in the final 200m. The first 200m took a lot more power out of me. I’ve swam next to Summer McIntosh [one of the favorites], I’m surprised. In the middle of the season I can do this in the morning very easily, I gave everything I had.

"I’m still trying to digest what happened. I’m very disappointed. I worked very hard primarily for this event. My parents came here to watch me. I know they’re not disappointed and they’re here for me, but it disappoints me personally. I’m still trying to digest it and then I’ll prepare for my upcoming events. I’m physically sore from this race as well as mentally. I’ll see what I can do as my next race is 200m backstroke.”

Also in the pool in the women’s 100m Backstroke, Aviv Barzelay finished first in her heat with a time of 1:02.30 but finished 25th and didn’t advance to the semifinals. Tuesday will see Tomer Frankel and the Men’s 4x200m Freestyle team in action.In women’s artistic gymnastics, Lihie Raz finished the preliminary qualification round in 16th place with a score of 51.632 in her All-Around results that includes the Floor Exercise, Vault, Balance Beam and Uneven Bars, but missed out on advancing to the finals after finishing 25th overall, just one place away.

Tomer Zaltsman, competing in his first Games, finished 29th in the Men’s Cross Country Mountain Bike Cycling.

On Tuesday, the Under-23 Israel National Soccer team will play Japan for a chance to advance out of the grip stages but will need some help and even with a victory will need to rely on a favorable result in the Paraguay and Mali match.

“We have moved on from the last game and now we are facing Japan,” said head coach Guy Luzon. “We will take the good things and the bad things and we will improve. What else did I want to see in that game? Concentration throughout the entire 90 minutes. We were there in the second half and in order to beat Japan we will have to be there throughout the game, this is actually the main thing that we have to improve.”

“Japan is an excellent team, Asian champions, a team that collected all six points, among the few in the tournament, very good with the ball, good without the ball, it does not have many weak points. But we will have to take advantage of those few weak points. From my time with Japanese players when I coached in Belgium, there is no difference between an actual game and practice and they always come into it the same way.”