{"id":62989,"date":"2021-08-26T17:00:24","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T23:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=62989"},"modified":"2021-08-26T17:00:24","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T23:00:24","slug":"israeli-arab-swimmer-wins-gold-at-tokyo-paralympics-makes-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/israeli-arab-swimmer-wins-gold-at-tokyo-paralympics-makes-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli-Arab swimmer wins gold at Tokyo Paralympics, makes history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(JTA) \u2014 On the first day of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2021\/08\/24\/sports\/ezra-frech-moran-samuel-shraga-weinberg-and-more-10-jewish-paralympics-athletes-to-watch\">the Paralympic Games<\/a>&nbsp;in Tokyo, swimmer Iyad Shalabi made history: He became&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/paralympic-swimmer-iyad-shalabi-wins-tokyo-gold-is-1st-arab-israeli-medalist\/\">the first<\/a>&nbsp;Israeli-Arab athlete to win a medal in the Olympics or Paralympics.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_62990\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-62990\" class=\"wp-image-62990 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-1024x569.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1.jpg 1536w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/167;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-62990\" class=\"wp-image-62990 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-300x167.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-1024x569.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/iyad-shalabi-1536x853-1.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-62990\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Israel&#8217;s Iyad Shalabi, center, with the gold medal after the Men&#8217;s 100m Backstroke &#8211; S1 Final at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on day one of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games in Japan. (John Walton\/PA Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Shalabi, 34, won gold Tuesday in the 100-meter backstroke in the S1 division in a time of 2 minutes, 28 seconds. Paralympic sports have a wide range of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/08\/24\/sport\/paralympics-classification-explainer-spt-intl\/index.html\">classifications<\/a>; S1 denotes severe activity limitations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy heart was pounding,\u201d Shalabi\u2019s father, Yusuf Shelby,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/breaking-news\/israeli-swimmer-iyad-shalabi-wins-gold-in-paralympics-backstroke-677670\">told the Israeli media.<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cWhen he overtook his competitor, I cried. He was constantly training. Six years every day he trains. It\u2019s like a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shalabi was born deaf to a Muslim family in Shfar\u2019am, in northern Israel. At age 12 he was paralyzed in an accident falling from a rooftop and lost the full use of his limbs.<\/p>\n<p>He competed in the Beijing and London Paralympics but failed to medal. A 2017 short documentary \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/jff.org.il\/en\/movie\/9275\">Swimming Against the Current<\/a>,\u201d directed by Assel Abu Hjoul, documented Shalabi\u2019s path to the World Championships in Scotland. The documentary premiered at the 2017 Jerusalem Film Festival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIyad is an inspiring man whose life is full of victories, and today he delivered another brilliant victory,\u201d Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Hili Tropper&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/breaking-news\/israeli-swimmer-iyad-shalabi-wins-gold-in-paralympics-backstroke-677670\">wrote<\/a>. \u201cIyad was not frightened by the high expectations and filled us all with great pride.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"at-below-post addthis_tool\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2021\/08\/25\/israel\/israeli-arab-swimmer-wins-gold-at-tokyo-paralympics-makes-history\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Israeli-Arab%20swimmer%20wins%20gold%20at%20Tokyo%20Paralympics%2C%20makes%20history\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1491,251],"tags":[2598,8781,11634,8790,8795,8788,11633],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62991,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62989\/revisions\/62991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}