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Don’t ask Eugenio Garfinkle, a tennis participant from Uruguay now competing in his thirteenth Maccabiah Video games, how outdated he’s. “Something after 80 is outdated,” he mentioned. “So I inform folks that I’m 70 plus 12.”
Garfinkle, a movie distributor from Montevideo, is celebrating his “bar mitzvah Maccabiah,” as a part of a three-generation workforce of Garfinkle athletes.
The twenty first Maccabiah Video games are being held in Israel from July 12 by means of July 26. Referred to as the “Jewish Olympics,” the Video games happen each 4 years. This yr, they are going to function 10,000 members from 60 nations in 42 totally different sports activities. There are a few dozen athletes over 80 years outdated.
Garfinkle’s son, Diego Garfinkle, 52, is taking part within the Uruguayan masters soccer workforce, and grandson, Alan Garfinkle, 22, is taking part in for the Uruguayan males’s open soccer workforce.
“When the grandfather is a sportsman, the entire household follows swimsuit,” Garfinkle mentioned from Jerusalem, the place he was touring along with his prolonged household earlier than the competitors. “Now we’re three generations of Garfinkles in the identical Maccabiah.”
That is Garfinkle’s son’s fourth Maccabiah and his grandson’s second, however it’s the first time all three generations are competing collectively.
Garfinkle stopped competing in tennis on the 14th Maccabiah, in 1993, as a result of his knees couldn’t take the beating on the hard-court floor. However this yr, the Maccabiah welcomed a brand new contingent of seniors taking part in on a clay court docket, which is way softer, so he determined to offer the competitors one other attempt as a part of the “Tremendous Further Grand Grasp” class for rivals over 80. Swimming additionally has a class for athletes over 80.
Garfinkle additionally was set to function Uruguay’s flagbearer within the Opening Ceremony on July 14, alongside along with his long-time doubles associate, Leonardo Rozenblum, 81.
“My complete life was sports activities,” mentioned Garfinkle. “At first I used to be very into basketball, however then after I acquired married my spouse was upset that I left her alone each evening. So I switched to tennis, which was simply on the weekends. I’ve performed everywhere in the world and throughout Latin America.”
Eugenio Garfinkle, pictured right here in an undated photograph in Montevideo, Uruguay, has participated in 13 Maccabiah Video games as a tennis participant. (Courtesy Eugenio Garfinkle)
“Sports activities is essential in life since you make actually good buddies,” he mentioned. “In sports activities you might be loyal to the opposite individuals, you don’t care about cash or faith or no matter.”
Garfinkle mentioned that past competitions, the relationships he constructed with athletes from world wide are his favourite factor about taking part in tennis.
Though the household’s simultaneous competitions in numerous places throughout Israel imply they received’t have the ability to cheer one another on, Garfinkle mentioned he was “enormously proud” to have his household competing alongside him, particularly in Israel, which has at all times felt like house. And he’s excited to cross the torch to the youthful era within the 180-strong Uruguayan contingent.
“We didn’t come for the glory,” mentioned Garfinkle, however for the neighborhood that’s created round sport, particularly amongst Maccabiah members. “It fills me with satisfaction that now, at 82 years outdated, I can come again and set an instance.”
And he hopes that his story will encourage different individuals to get entangled in sports activities, no matter age.
“I’m a ‘younger outdated particular person,’” he mentioned. “I’m outdated for my age and younger for my way of life.”
Replace: The Uruguayan open males’s soccer workforce defeated Sweden, 3-1, on July 14, and tied the US squad, 1-1, on July 17. Their subsequent sport within the group stage is on July 18 at 9 a.m. on the Kraft Household Sports activities Campus in Jerusalem’s Emek Ha’Arazim. The highest two groups in Group A, seemingly the American and Uruguayan groups, will then compete on July 20 throughout the quarter-finals on the Kraft advanced.
The Uruguayan 45+ masters soccer workforce defeated the French squad, 2-1, on July 13, and beat the UK workforce, 2-0, on July 15. Their subsequent sport within the group stage is on July 20 in opposition to Argentina at Shapira Area in Netanya.
The matches for people taking part in within the masters 65+ tennis match usually are not posted. All of the tennis matches are happening on the Israel Tennis Middle in Ramat HaSharon.
Ethan Freedman contributed to this report.
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