Another story on the judo match that never happened. The IOC will do nothing at all, of course. They hate Israel as much as anybody. They didn't even pause the games in Munich in 72 while the Israeli team got shot by the PLO.
An Israeli weeps for a foe never fought
By CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
Monday, August 16, 2004 - Page A1
ATHENS -- At the rear of the Ano Liossia Olympic Hall yesterday, Yudi Vaks squatted down onto his heels and buried his big square head in his arms -- imagine the fetal position gone vertical -- and sobbed.
The 24-year-old judoka wept for Arash Miresmaeili, the young Iranian who didn't fight him because Mr. Vaks is a Jew from the hated state of Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran does not let its athletes compete against Israelis. He would rather have had Mr. Miresmaeili beat the snot out of him, as indeed the reigning world champion in the half-light class likely would have done, than advance through the first round via a DNS -- short for did not show.
"It's not the way I wanted to win," Mr. Vaks said. "Sport is more than two people fighting judo; it's contesting. It's really unfair for him. It's a small world, judo. I admire him. He's a great player.
"I'm sure, given the chance," he said, voice breaking a little, "he would fight. It feels horrible, for him. I don't have to imagine how I feel when I lose, but this is worse. They didn't even let him fight."
That does appear to be the truth, or close to it. But it's also the explanation to which Mr. Vaks must cling. For the alternative, that on his own, a 23-year-old Iranian would conclude it is better to forfeit the chance at a gold medal than to break sweat with an actual Israeli, is too awful to contemplate.
Though Mr. Miresmaeili told the Iranian news agency last week that he was withdrawing from competition on principle -- "I refused to face my rival in sympathy with the oppressed Palestinian people" -- Reuters reported yesterday a spokesman for the Iranian Olympic Committee saying flatly that non-competition against Israelis is national policy, as it has been since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and that it wasn't the judoka's choice to withdraw.
But cast as an overtly political withdrawal, it could result in a sanction of sorts if it were deemed at odds with Olympic ideals, or so the International Judo Federation's Michel Brousse was thundering yesterday after the agency met in emergency session.
So there was Mr. Miresmaeili showing up for the weigh-in yesterday morning, officially too heavy, and by such an unusually large margin for a world-class athlete that the judo federation is investigating the matter. And there was the chairman of the Iranian delegation, Nassrollah Sajadi, telling Reuters that the judoka should still receive the $115,000 the republic gives its medal winners. And there, finally, was Iranian President Mohammed Khatami (amusingly, considered a moderate cleric), praising Mr. Miresmaeili as "the champion of the 2004 Games" for his stand and pledging he would be recognized "in the history of Iranian glories."
Mr. Vaks's miserable experience is an apt metaphor for what Israeli athletes go through all the time.
When the Palestinian delegation marched into the Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremonies last week, they were warmly welcomed. When the Iraqis came in, they got a standing ovation and the loudest cheers of the night. Even the Americans were greeted with polite, if unenthusiastic, applause.
But the small Israeli team -- 36 athletes competing in 14 sports -- was met with quiet so complete it was shocking.
"I noticed the silence," Yaron Michaeli, an Israeli TV journalist seconded to the team as press attaché, said yesterday. "Maybe they had their reasons, but it's the opposite of what the Olympics are supposed to be."
"It's my first Olympics, and the most important thing I've learned is that we are all one," he said. "Only our leaders don't understand this. Maybe our leaders should come into the village with us. Two days, even 24 hours, and they will learn it."
Life in the athletes' village, Mr. Michaeli said, is instructive. "You get on a bus, and the man next to you is a Syrian or an Algerian. You go in the dining room, with 5,000 other people, and we are all the same."
On Wednesday, with athletes from New Zealand, Timor and the Netherlands there for similar formalities, the Israeli athletes watched as their flag was raised. "You hear your national anthem for the first time," Mr. Michaeli said, "and you think, 'I want to hear it more.' "
Motioning toward the mats where the judokas compete, he said, "The only fight we want is there. We come for sport, not politics. We have enough of that at home."
The story of how Mr. Vaks, who is studying computer science, in English, at a college in the Had-Hasharon suburb of Tel Aviv, got to Athens is inspirational. In November, he was in a car crash, taken to hospital, pronounced sound and sent home. "But he felt very bad, still," Mr. Michaeli said, "so he went back, and they found his spleen had been cut in the crash and removed it."
For the next four months, Mr. Vaks, who had been rated fifth in Europe in his weight class, the under-66 kilograms, couldn't compete or train at all. In the spring, he started fighting again, and within two months had made the Olympic squad and clawed his way back up the rankings to eighth spot. "It was something I had to do," he said simply. "That's what I dreamed for since childhood."
In the stands were four friends from Had-Hasharon, including two college classmates, Avriel Kebi and Ramati Ido, bravely waving the blue-and-white flag of Israel.
As Mr. Michaeli said, "For us, for Yudi to be here is a dream."
But that wasn't true for the young man himself, who lost his second-round match by what's called a yuko. "The real dream," he said afterward, "was winning. This [getting to the Games] is only process."
He was utterly crushed by Mr. Miresmaeili's failure to fight, and by Iran's refusal to recognize Israel. "It's funny," he said, near tears. "They don't have the right to not recognize us. Israel is a democracy; Iran is not. . . . So I feel terrible on a personal level and on a national level, as well. I don't think we need to have a quarrel between our countries."
It was, literally, the luck of the draw that pitted him against an Iranian and ended Yudi Vaks' Olympic dream.
But what damaged his spirit, caused his nice mouth with its jumble of crooked teeth to crumple, was something bigger and uglier. "We're all human," he moaned. "We have the same feelings. It's not my fault, and I think it's not my country's fault, either."
Judo is Japanese for "the gentle way," but there was nothing gentle about what happened to this dear young man yesterday, and nothing more terrible than the sight of him on his heels, crying.
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