Ze'evi ousted from medal race

Judoka Arik Ze'evi, who was Israel's greatest hope for a medal in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was ousted from the games Thursday morning after losing to Brazilian world champion Luciano Correa in his first battle for a bronze medal.

Earlier, Ze'evi got off to a good start after beating his French rival Frederic Demontfaucon in the men's 100kg category, but went on to lose to European champion Henk Grol of The Netherlands in his second match.

Ze'evi won a bronze medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics.  

His first and only successful match was a close one, but Ze'evi managed to move to the lead after four minutes, which he maintained until the end of the battle.

Dozens of Israeli fans and an almost similar amount of journalists watched the fights at the Beijing University.

Demontfaucon and Ze'evi compete (Photo: AFP)

'I am not retiring'

After losing his latest match, Ze'evi sequestered himself for over an hour in the dressing room of science faculty gymnasium at the University of Beijing, trying to come to terms with both the loss and the disappointment among the scores of Israeli fans and journalists who came to cheer him on, with hopes of witnessing Israel's first Olympic medal in the China games.

Ze'evi was clearly shaken by the loss. When he emerged from the locker room an hour and a half later, he told reporters, "Now is not the time to make conclusions, I am not retiring. From this morning there was a weird feeling. During the matches I felt that it wasn't working, a sort of frustration. If I had made past the Dutchman, everything would have been different. Even after defeating the Frenchman I felt like this wasn't working, things weren't falling into place."

Israel's number one Judo fighter, with tears in his eyes, added that "I wasn't ready for this sort of pressure; I think that it was all too much. For the first time, I just didn't have the drive. That was one of the worst matches of my entire career. I had nothing to lean on after that difficult lot that I was handed, I just could not find the light."

Ze'evi added, "I don't see myself retiring after a competition like that, the scenario that I had in my head, the medal was there as well as in the European championships next year. Now I will need to take some time off and relax for a week or two, and then I will decide what to do."

After his statement, Ze'evi said that "I did not come to this competition as a killer with bloodlust. From now on I am going to concentrate on my wedding which is scheduled for the 11th of September and the honeymoon that follows."

Yael Arad, Israel's first Olympic medal winner in Judo, who is in China as a commentator for Israel's channel 1, said after Ze'evi's match, "I am sad, really. To end what is most likely his last Olympic like this is not fun at all. This performance is not characteristic of Arik's career."