Swimming against the tide

"I focused on the swim and didn't think about politics," he says. "I didn't care if I would be the first or last Arab to win, and against whom I was swimming. I just wanted to swim fast. I started thinking about it only when I received the telephone calls and saw the headlines.

Competitor's color irrelevant

Whether he wanted to or not, Kopty has written his name in the local history book of swimming as the first Arab to win an Israeli championship in an Olympic heat. Now, before returning to Missouri College, he mainly dreams about the European championship and London 2012.

He insists on not mixing sports and politics, but in the past year Kopty has been learning from personal experience and against his will that separating the two is not always possible. Swimmer Gal Nevo, Kopty's colleague, said after beating rivals from Syria and Lebanon in the recent world championships in Shanghai and after an Iranian swimmers withdrawal that "every Israeli knows you must defeat Arabs".

Kopty (center) with gold medal (Photo: Yuval Chen)

When I ask him how he felt about it, Kopty appears uncomfortable. "I was pretty surprised when I heard him say that," he says. "I know Gal and the team members, and it's the last thing I thought they would say. They're nice guys and I admire them.

"I didn't understand if the media made it into a big story or if he really meant it. When I jump into the water I don't check to see if the person next to me is an Arab or a Jew. I don't look at the person's color. I was pretty offended, insulted. But it also motivated me. I said to myself, 'I want to finish before him in the competition.' I hope Gal didn’t mean it and that it was a slip of the tongue."

Didn't you ask him about it?

"Not yet. I shook his hand at the Israeli Championship when we received the medals. He showed an interest in me, that's all."

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"But I do think he was forced to do so by higher ranks. I heard that in the Beijing Olympics he was offered a lot of money not to compete against our Tom Be'eri."

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"In the European Junior Swimming Championships I traveled with the Israeli delegation. When I arrived at the airport with Israeli uniform and we had to go through the security checked, everyone was allowed to pass easily except me. They said, 'You're an Arab.' And they didn't let me go back and sit with my parents either. They said, 'We're afraid they'll give you something.'

"So fine, I was supported by the delegation. They said, 'If you're checking him, check us too.' In the water everyone is equal. There's no Jew and no Arab. But when I come out of the water, it's a different story."

London calling

The Arab-Christian Kopty family lives in a beautiful house in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina. The father, Mazen, who was born in Nazareth, is a particularly busy lawyer, and the mother, Yvette, from the northern town of Tarshiha, who has worked as a physiotherapist and is now busy raising her children and attending to her large art collection.

Juan, 21, began swimming at the age of three. "At first I was scared to death, and during my first lessons I would scream my lungs out," he laughs. "But I quickly felt like I belonged in the water. When you swim, you just forget about everything."

"Go to Neve Yaakov (a Jewish neighborhood near Beit Hanina), go anywhere, they all have pools. Soccer can even be played on the road, while swimming is a relatively expensive sports. I had parents who supported me throughout the way and drove me to practice twice a day, but not everyone has."

In spite of the long hours he spends in the pool, Kopty, who apart from Hebrew and Arabic is also fluent in English and French, has found the time to live like other people his age.

"I haven't had time for everything, but I knew how to make time for the important thing, mainly friends," he says.

Parties, girlfriends?

"It's no secret that you have a lot of fun in college on the weekends. I now have a girlfriend in the United States. She's my first serious girlfriend. It's a totaling new thing, which began in the summer, because I finally had some time. Before that, I would return home at 11 pm after spending the evening in the library, go to sleep and wake up at 5 pm to practice. It's very hard to have a girlfriend that way."

Kopty arrived in the US before turning 16. For two years he lived with fellow swimmer Nimrod Shapira Bar Or, at a boarding school in Jacksonville, Florida. The first months, he says, were quite difficult.

"It's not easy without your parents. You have to take care of yourself, learn when to go to sleep, when to study. I got used to it after several months. Naturally, I missed my family, but we talk on the phone every day. And I'm not the only one – there are young people from all over the world there. I have friends from Indonesia, the Caribbean Islands, Germany, Korea and China."

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