However, the biggest story of the day was undoubtedly Itay Shanny, who stunned the archery competition as the Israeli recorded two huge wins on his way to advancing to the round-of-16. Shanny defeated not only Japan’s Hiroki Muto, but then also downed Tarundeep Rai from India to punch his ticket to the round-of-16, which will take place early Saturday morning.
The 22-year-old Sabra had finished 60th out of 64 competitors in the qualification round of competition which took place last Friday, setting him up for a duel against one of the medal favorites in Muto, who had already won a bronze medal in the Archery team event after hitting a do-or-die bullseye.
But Shanny shocked the fifth-ranked Muto, cruising to a 7-3 win over the marksman which helped build up the Israeli rookie’s confidence as he faced veteran archer Tarundeep Rai from India in the round-of-32.
Rai, who had won medals at the World Championships and Asian Games and is one of India’s top ranked archers, proved to be a formidable test for the Israeli. But Shanny was able to match Rai arrow for arrow as he began the match with a score of 10, 9, 9 to Rai’s 7, 8, 9.
Each competitor had five sets of three arrows each, with a set win worth two points and a tie valued at one point apiece. After falling behind 5-3 with only one set to go, Shanny pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and evened up the score at 5-5 sending the into a shoot-off. The Israeli held his own and scored a perfect 10 to Rai’s 9 to move on to the final day of the competition, where he will participate at 3:43 Israel time on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, the Israel Baseball Team will open up its participation in the Tokyo Games on Thursday at 1 p.m. Israel time against South Korea, which will be followed up with a game against the United States on Friday at the same time.
In judo, Li Kochman fell in the round-of-16 to the fourth-ranked Lasha Bekauri from Georgia after winning his opening round bout against David Klammert. Thursday will see one of Israel’s medal hopefuls, Peter Paltchik, take to the mat in the -100kg category while Inbal Lanir will make her Olympics debut in the women’s -78kg category.
Over in the pool, Ron Polonsky and Gal Cohen Groumi both set personal records in the 200m Individual Medley qualification with times of 1:58:95m and 1:59:44m, respectively, but did not advance to the semifinals.
Yaakov Toumarkin swam a 1:59:65m in the 200m Backstroke and did not qualify for the next round, finishing in 28th place. Cohen Groumi and Tomer Frankel will both take part in the 100m Butterfly qualification on Thursday.
On the women’s side Andi Murez set a new Israeli record in the 100m Freestyle with a time of 54:06s, but placed 22nd overall and didn’t advance to the next round. Anastasia Gorbenko had a tough time in the 200m Breaststroke, swimming 2:28:41m, which wasn’t good enough to move on to the semifinals.
On Thursday, Aviv Barzelay will be competing in the 200m Backstroke while the Mixed 4x100 Medley Relay team will look to advance to the finals on Saturday.
Also, Katy Spychakov had a rough day in Windsurfer RS:X as she dropped out of medal contention, falling from fifth place to seventh by the end of her three races. The Israeli ended in 13th place in both races 7 and 8 while in race 9 she finished in ninth as the gap increased between Spychkov and the top three.
On the men’s side, Yoav Cohen dropped from fifth to sixth place overall but is still within striking distance of second and third place. Cohen got off to a good start, finishing race 7 in sixth and race 8 in seventh. However, race 9 saw Cohen slip to a disappointing 16th-place finish as he will try to make up ground lost on Thursday in races 10, 11, 12 and get back into the medal hunt.
Noya Baram and Shachar Tibi began their Olympic competition in the women’s Two Person Dinghy 470 as they completed races 1 and 2 in second and 15th places, respectively, good for fourth overall with races 3 and 4 coming up on Thursday.
On Thursday, Shay Kakon will also be back in action after an off day in Laser Radial action.
In Women’s Cycling, Omer Shapira took part in the Time Trial event and finished in 15th place, 3:02:35m behind the gold medalist, Annemiek van Vleuten from the Netherlands.
Misha Zilberman was officially eliminated from badminton competition without even playing after the final group stage match ended with Mark Caljouw of the Netherlands defeating B. Sai Praneeth, spelling an end to the Israeli’s chances.