Gal Fridman
Fridman in action
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Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Native name | גל פרידמן | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ethnicity | Jewish | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Karkur, Israel |
September 16, 1975 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | Lua error in Module:Convert at line 1851: attempt to index local 'en_value' (a nil value).[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 68 kg (150 lb)[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other interests | Cycling | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | Israel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Sailing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Event(s) | Mistral | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Club | Sdot Yam | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coached by | Mike Gebhardt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Retired | 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Highest world ranking | 1st (Mistral, 2003) 25th (RS:X, 2007) |
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Medal record
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Updated on August 8, 2012. |
Gal Fridman (Hebrew: גל פרידמן; born September 16, 1975) is an Israeli windsurfer and Olympic gold medalist. Fridman won a bronze medal in the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics, and a gold medal in the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics. He is the only Israeli athlete to win two Olympic medals, and the first (and only, thus far) Olympic gold medalist in Israeli history. His first name, Gal, means "wave" in Hebrew.
He was born in Karkur, Israel, and lives in Sdot Yam, a nearby kibbutz.
Contents
Early life and career
Fridman is Jewish.[2] The second out of three children, Fridman was born to Dganit and Uri Fridman, and has an older sister named Maayan and a younger brother named Yuval. Introduced by his father to windsurfing, Fridman started sailing at age 7, and began racing when he was 11. He began competing internationally in youth categories while still at school. After his service in the Israel Defense Forces he began competing as an adult.[3]
In 1995, he won the ASA Boardsailing Championship in Eilat, Israel. In 1999, he won the International ASA Windsurfing Championship in Eilat. Despite his form in the previous year, he failed to qualify to the Sydney 2000 Olympics. In 2002, he won the Mistral World Championship held in Pattaya, Thailand,[3] and was ranked #1 on the International Sailing Federation rankings in February 2003.[4]
Atlanta 1996
At the 1996 Summer Olympics, Fridman won a bronze medal for Israel in the Mistral men's windsurfing category, and was named Israeli Sportsman of the Year.[3]
Athens 2004
Fridman was one of Israel's Olympic team favorites to a win a medal (along with judoka Ariel Zeevi and athlete Aleksander Averbukh), and prepared intensively for the Olympic Games two years prior to the event. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, Fridman again competed in the Mistral windsurfer sailing, a discipline that included 11 races. Fridman's results were:
Race | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
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Place | (8) | 3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 2 |
(Note: the worst race score is omitted)
In the last race on August 25, 2004, Fridman exploited a poor performance by Brazilian leader Ricardo Santos and a tactical mistake by Greek windsurfer Nikolaos Kaklamanakis in order to burst forward and finish the final race second, thus earning the gold medal overall. He achieved an overall total of 50 negative points, and a net total of 42 negative points. Since this was the lowest negative score in the competition, Fridman earned first place and received the first Olympic gold medal ever won for Israel.
Final positions:
- Gal Fridman – Israel (gold medal)
- Nikolaos Kaklamanakis – Greece (silver medal)
- Nick Dempsey – Great Britain (bronze medal)
- Ricardo Santos – Brazil
- Przemysław Miarczyński – Poland
Later years
Fridman won a gold medal in the Israeli cycling championship in 2005.[5] In 2007, he won the Men's Windsurfer New Year International Regatta in Limassol, Cyprus.
Approaching the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Fridman found it hard to adjust to the model replacing the Mistral windsurfer – the RS:X Neil Pryde windsurfer, and failed to qualify for the Olympic team. A young and promising windsurfer by the name of Shahar Tzuberi took his place. After 2008, Fridman no longer competes in windsurfing, having made the switch to coaching. He guided Nimrod Mashiah to the silver medal in the 2009 World Championship.[6] He married Michal Peleg in August 2005, his girlfriend for the past ten years. In June 2005 his medals were stolen from his parents' home after a robbery, but the gold medal was retained. In July 2009, his wife welcomed a baby girl, Ella.
Hall of Fame
In 2005, Fridman was named to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.[4]
Achievements
Year | Tournament | Result |
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1995 | Mistral European Championship | 2nd |
1996 | Mistral World Championship | 2nd |
1996 | Olympic Games, Atlanta | 3rd |
1997 | Mistral European Championship | 3rd |
1999 | International ASA Windsurfing Championship | 1st |
2002 | Mistral European Championship | 2nd |
2002 | Mistral World Championship, Thailand | 1st |
2003 | ISAF World Championship | 3rd |
2004 | Olympic Games, Athens | 1st |
See also
- List of Olympic medalists in sailing
- List of World Championships medalists in sailing (windsurfer classes)
- List of Jews in sports
- Israel at the Olympics
- Sports in Israel
Family Guy Season 12 Episode 10 Grimm Job
mentioned as great Jewish athlete
References
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- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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External links
- Gal Fridman at the International Sailing Federation
- Gal Fridman at the Jewish Agency for Israel
- Gal Fridman at the Jewish Virtual Library
- Gal Fridman Achieves Olympic Glory, video at the Olympic Games official website
- Use mdy dates from June 2015
- Articles containing Hebrew-language text
- 1975 births
- Living people
- Israeli Jews
- Israeli windsurfers
- Jewish sportspeople
- Olympic bronze medalists for Israel
- Olympic gold medalists for Israel
- Olympic medalists in sailing
- Olympic sailors of Israel
- People from Haifa District
- Sailors at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Mistral One Design
- Sailors at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Mistral One Design
- Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics