There were plenty of Israelis in Olympic action on Sunday as judokas, swimmers and gymnasts looked to ply their trade and work their way up to a podium finish in Paris.
In women’s judo, Gefen Primo advanced to Repechage of the -53kg category but fell to Hungarian Reka Pupp via Ippon in just 46 seconds and was eliminated from medal contention. Gefen began the day by defeating Yerin Jung from South Korea in her opening bout and then advanced to quarterfinals by beating Binta Ndiaye from Switzerland.
However, Primo lost to Distria Krasniqi from Kosovo in the quarterfinals and moved down to the Repechage bracket where she ultimately came up short against Pupp.
Primo, who was in tears, spoke about her showing minutes after being eliminated.
“I haven’t had that much time to digest what happened. I started the bout well but there wasn't much of a fight, she caught me and from there it was too late. The hole in my heart will never be filled, it's hard, that's not how I wanted to end the day. I'm sorry it ended like this. I want to send love to my family and thank you for all of the support and thank you to my club as well.”
Also on the judo mat, Baruch Shmailov, competing in the -67kg category, defeated Abderrahmane Boushita from Morocco, who refused to shake the Sabra's hand after the first bout. However, the opening win didn’t propel Shmailov to advance any further, as he was eliminated in the Round of 16 by Nurali Emomali from Tajikistan.
“There is no way I can explain what happened there in the last second of the bout,” Shamailov said. “I went into the hold, and my opponent responded with a move, but I was sure that I could pull him by the hand and drop him to the mat, but unfortunately, I was the one who fell to the mat first. It's sad and painful, especially when there are so many Israelis here that I heard in the stands. I fought for everyone and for my country, but unfortunately it was not enough.”
Monday will see judokas Timna Nelson Levy and Tohar Butbol in action for the blue-and-white.
Will Dolgoyat defend his crown?
Late Saturday, reigning Olympic champion Artem Dolgoyat advanced to the final in the Artistic Gymnastics Floor Exercise competition at the Paris Games, where he will be able to defend his crown.
His qualification, however, was in the balance all the way to the end of the opening round.
Dolgopyat was in the first group of gymnasts who attempted to finish in the top eight overall in order to punch their ticket to the final, but the Israeli finished in sixth place with a score of 14.466 and needed to wait through two rounds of gymnasts to see if he would move on or not.
No one from the second group finished above Dolgopyat but the Tokyo silver medalist from Japan Rayderley Zapata finished in third to bump the Israeli down to seventh place, but that was as low as he would go in qualification as Dolgopyat earned a berth in next Saturday’s final.
Over in the 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 included the Floor Exercise, Vault, Balance Beam, and Uneven Bars. United States superstar Simone Biles finished in first place with a score of 59.566.
Dolgopyat also competed on the Pommel Horse, where he finished in 46th place with a score of 13.00 which wasn’t good enough to advance to the final.
Over in the pool, Israeli Anastasia Gorbenko 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 one of her specialties, the 400m Individual Medley that will be held on Monday.
In the Men's 200m Freestyle, Denis Loktev advanced to the semifinals with a time of 1:47.01, while Adam Maraana was eliminated in his qualification heat for the Men’s 100m Backstroke. Lea Polonsky also didn’t advance in her Women’s 200m Freestyle heat.
In fencing, Yuval Freilich competed in Epee and was eliminated in the Table of 32 by Italian Andrea Santarelli 15-13 after leading early on 6-1.
Olympic veteran Sergey Richter finished in 33rd place in 10m Air Rifle Shooting with a score of 626.4 and was eliminated from contention.
Anat Lelior finished her surfing heat in second place out of three competitors to advance to the second round of the event, which is being held in Tahiti.
Finally, Sharon Kantor and Tom Reuveny’s respective sailing competitions were postponed due to inclement weather.