Two chartered flights from Canada arrived in Israel Friday bringing over 500 of the top Canadian Jewish athletes to the quadrennial Maccabiah games, known as the “Jewish Olympics”.
The gala opening ceremony will take place on Monday evening, July 13, and Canada will march into the Ramat Gan sports stadium just outside Tel Aviv with the third largest team after Israel and the USA.
The 18th Maccabiah will have 7350 athletes from 51 nations competing in 34 different sports, from archery to wrestling.
Canadian athletes will be competing at the junior, senior and masters level at the games, and hoping to bring home dozens of medals.
The Maccabiah Games are similar to the Olympics and held in Israel every four years under the auspices of the Maccabi Federation, an international sports and fraternal organization. The games are aimed at Jewish athletes, but Arab Israelis are eligible to participate.
The huge athlete participation makes it on of the five largest sporting events in the world. Because the games are sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee and World Federation of Sports, athletes are eligible to set world records.