Israeli exhibit brings the Olympics to life

By Noah D. Gurock

Exclusive for The Jewish Star

Issue of July 17, 2009 / 25 Tammuz 5769

TEL AVIV-For Americans who watched Michael Phelps win eight gold medals last year at the Olympic Games in Beijing, or who remember Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson leading Team USA to the Gold in the 1992 games in Barcelona, the excitement of a single Olympic medal may pale in comparison.

But when you see how Israelis cheered when Shay Oren Smadga (Bronze in Judo) and Yael Arad (Silver in Judo) won the nation’s first-ever Olympic medals in 1992, or how the giant Israeli flags waved when Gil Fridman won a Bronze in sailing in Atlanta in 1996, you might change your mind.

Scenes of Israeli athletes erupting with emotion after winning gold, silver or bronze were rarely, if ever, shown on American TV. But they explode on the giant screen as part of “The Olympic Experience,” a spectacular multi-media show soon to open here in Tel Aviv.

The Jewish Star was given an exclusive preview of the show last week, an exciting one-hour interactive extravaganza that took three years to conceive and another three years (and 15 million shekels) to put together. The tour was in Hebrew, but an English language version will be ready very soon.

Originally called an Olympic “museum,” the five-room show (corresponding to the five Olympic rings) follows a young female athlete (“Shir”) and her coach (“Yael”) as she prepares to compete in the Olympic Games. “Shir” is worried about being ready to face the stress of the competition. We learn about the modern Olympic champions in one room (including Jordan, Magic Johnson, Jesse Owens and Mark Spitz, among others, and what it takes to be a champion).

It’s a theatre in the round, 360 degrees of excitement as you stand in the middle of the room and watch images blast onto giant screens all around you.

We were joined on our tour by a group of 12 year-olds from a school in Ramat HaSharon. These boys and girls were thrilled and dazzled by the experience, even though the names and faces of the athletes were unknown to them

In the second room, we are taken back to ancient times, as we join Shir and Yael in learning about the origins of the Olympic Games.

In the third room we sit in the middle of the Olympic “ring” as the stories of Israel’s champions are projected, told through their own words and state of the art

holograms. We are moved from one side to the other, transfixed by the stories of the six athletes who won a total of seven medals (Fridman won a Gold in sailing in 2004) and hear their stories of a life of training, striving and courage.

That’s one of the goals of the show, explained Shlomi Stein, the manager of The Olympic Experience, who insists you don’t have to be a sports fan to be dazzled by it. The real message, Stein told us, is that “you can have a dream and proceed to fulfill it.” And that’s what you hear from all of the Israeli Olympians, in their own words, as you re-live their moments of Olympic glory.

For those of us who lived through the tragedy of Munich in 1972, the fourth ring, a memorial to the 11 Israeli Olympians who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, tells a story which still brings tears to your eyes. The video clip of Golda Meir warning the world that “no Israeli will ever be safe anywhere,” if Israel gives in to terrorist demands, brought back memories of the story we covered for days.

The historic video clip of ABC’s Jim McKay telling the world that, “Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They’ve now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning; nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone,” is something no one should forget.

The stories of the murdered Olympians are narrated by Israeli track and field star Esther Roth-Shachamorov, a member of the 1972 Israeli Olympic Team who was housed in a different part of the Olympic complex. The stories are emotional tributes to those murdered, so much so that Roth-Shachamorov breaks down as she ends their stories.

But something is missing. Although she is identified as a survivor, no mention is made of the five Israelis who survived the actual attack.

The theme of the fifth ring room is the future, with a giant sound and light globe to inspire everyone to live the Olympic theme of “faster, higher, stronger.”

And to help young people better understand that, there is a room full of interactive activities. You can test yourself against someone else in sprinting off the starting blocks, or get on a treadmill and see just how fast you would have to run to compete in a Marathon. You can also take an interactive quiz on the Olympics and Israel’s Olympic history.

The show “is excellent to explain the Olympic spirit to youngsters, and to motivate them for hard work to try to reach the goal of participation in the Olympic Games,” we were told by Shaul P. Ladany, a two-time Israeli Olympian.

Ladany, holder of a number of world records in Race Walking and author of the autobiography “King of the Road,” saw the show during a pre-opening event for athletes. He is disappointed that, “The Olympic Experience gives short shrift to Israel’s Olympic history.

“The history of the Israeli participation is long, interesting, full of devoted and non-devoted individuals, volunteers, politicians and officials, joys, intrigues, failures and successes,” he told the Jewish Star.

Ladany was one of the five Israeli athletes who escaped the Munich massacre and relives the terror every day. He said of “The Olympic Experience”: “It provides a good platform to memorialize the 11 Israelis massacred in Munich. It presents a proper view of the Olympic-medal winning history of Israel.”

“The Olympic Experience” is located at the Hadar Yosef Sports Building, 6 Shetrit St., Tel Aviv. You can make reservations to see the multi-media show by e-mail OlympicE [at] nocil.co.il or by phone 011-972-3-649-8385. It will be open to the public after the conclusion of the 18th World Maccabiah Games now underway.

Noah D. Gurock is News Enterprise Manager at WWOR-TV/My9 News. As a newspaper reporter, he covered the 1968 Olympics and reported on the Munich Massacre in 1972.