Maccabiah Games
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The Maccabiah Games is an international Jewish athletic event similar to the Olympics. The games were first held in 1932 and occur every four years in Israel. The most recent games were held in July 2005. The Maccabiah is the fourth biggest multisport event after the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and the Universiade.
History
Originally conceived by Yosef Yekutieli, a fifteen-year-old inspired by the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games, the Games have been running since 1932 after fourteen years of development by Yekutieli and the Jewish National Fund. The first Games was opened by Tel Aviv Mayor Meir Dizengoff, with almost 400 athletes from 18 countries participating, including over 60 from Arab countries such as Syria and Egypt.Previous Games
Games have been held roughly every four years in Eretz Yisrael since 1932.15th Maccabiah Games
The 1997 Maccabiah Games will be remembered by all its participants -- and Jewish people -- around the world as a games that was marred by the collapse of a bridge immediately before the Opening Ceremony, leaving some athletes to fall into the diseased Yarkon River. On the bridge at the time were athletes marching to enter Ramat Gan Stadium, Tel Aviv.Four Australians, Greg Small, Elizabeth Sawicki, Yetty Bennett and Warren Zines, were killed when the bridge collapsed. Scores more were injured.
After the accident, both the Opening Ceremony and the Games themselves continued — with spectators in the stadium given an announcement that the bridge had collapsed and at least one Australian had been killed — albeit with lower enthusiasm than expected.
Many inquests were completed into the collapse of the bridge by both Israeli and Australian authorities with some being considered more beneficial to the situation than others.
16th Maccabiah Games
For the 2001 Games, the Opening Ceremony was held in Jerusalem at Teddy Stadium, while the re-building process of the collapsed bridge and investigations into the collapse continued.It is considered a 'smaller games' for three main reasons: attendance was significantly lower, particularly from the Australians (it sent only about 170 athletes, compared with around 400 in 1997); it was run at the height of the Second Intifada (and straight after the infamous Dolphinarium bombing -- the largest of the Intifada -- that killed 21 Israelis, mostly high school students); and not all wounds had been healed after the collapse of the bridge.
17th Maccabiah Games
For the first time since 1997, the [2005 Maccabiah Games] were considered a success. Apart from the usual lack of interest from Israeli society, attendance was back up, and three out of four families of those who died in the 1997 bridge collapse attended.It received the biggest attendance of any Maccabiah Games to date, which included more than 900 representatives from the United States, almost 500 from Australia, and more than 2,000 from Israel bringing the total participants to more than 5,000.
World Maccabi bodies
Many Jewish schools from all over the world send students who are particularly talented in a sport to Israel to participate in the games.External links
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