KFAR NETTER - Mark Spitz has returned to where he won his first gold medal 40 years ago, this time leading the 800-member U.S. delegation at the 17th Maccabiah Games.
Spitz went on to win seven gold medals and set seven world records at the ill-fated 1972 Munich Olympics, a feat that has never been equaled. He has been cited as the greatest Jewish athlete of all time, and certainly among the top.
After visiting a horse farm near Israel's seacoast between Tel Aviv and Haifa, Spitz recalled the pleasure and the pain of the 1972 Games.
The day after he won his seventh gold medal with his last world record, Spitz, an American Jew, was whisked away from the Olympic Village after Palestinian terrorists attacked the Israeli quarters.
In a shootout with German police, 11 Israeli athletes, held hostage by the terrorists, were killed.
These days Spitz sports a head of gray hair, and his trademark black mustache is no more, but the memory is still vivid.
He called the terror attack in 1972 "the greatest tragedy of the Olympic Games." He said it was a special honor to serve as the torchbearer in the 1985 Maccabiah Games along with the three daughters of one of the Israeli athletes who was killed.
Spitz was just 15 when he won a gold medal in the 1965 Maccabiah. He said his participation in the international Jewish games helped launch his success as an international champion.
"It's the vision for a number of athletes who come to the Maccabiah that they might one day be able to participate in future Olympics," he said.
Claiming to have no opinion about Israel's role in the Mideast conflict, Spitz said he plans no meetings with politicians here.
"I thought politics were difficult to understand in the U.S. Here it's even worse," Spitz said. However, he plans to meet this week with people wounded in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The former champion said he stays away from the pool these days. Asked if he was still swimming, the Olympic legend looked down at his 55-year-old physique and said with a chuckle, "Not well."
Spitz said he shaved off his mustache in 1988 after a request by his wife.
"She wanted to know how I would look without it and I thought I’d find out,” he said.
But his mustache had a practical use during the 1972 Munich Olympics, where he pulled off his unprecedented feat.
“Before a swimming heat in the Munich Olympics I sensed that the Russians were copying me in one of my training session. I tried to confuse them and swam in a bizarre style I made up on the spot, and one of them became interested and asked me if this was my style," he said. "I answered in the affirmative, and he asked how it was that swimmers shave every hair from their bodies, yet I had a mustache. I told him the mustache helps alleviate water resistance, and they believed me.”
Spitz, who today works as a stockbroker, is on his fourth visit to Israel.
“My first time here was during the 1965 Maccabiah, and it was my most important visit. It gave me a lot of experience that helped me later on. Last time I was here was 20 years ago. Since then everything has changed here, even the terminal at Ben Gurion airport is starting to remind me of the terminal at Los Angeles.”
The Los Angeles-based husband and father spends his free time traveling the world delivering motivational speeches, with Hong Kong next on the schedule.
Yedioth Ahronoth writer Avinoam Porat contributed to this article
RSS
