Swimming all the way to Rio

I jumped into the Tel Aviv University pool and, gripped by nostalgia, grabbed the ball as strongly as I could. In my dream, I saw myself lifting my once-terrifying left arm for a throw and scoring a goal that even the old-timers at the university pool had never seen before. Suddenly, a threatening hand on my shoulder shoved me down into the depths while the other hand grabbed the ball, completing my humiliation for the summer. The hand that ended my career for the second time (the first was 25 years ago, when I still dreamed of turning my hobby into a profession) belongs to Dr. Yael Lichter, a resident at Ichilov Hospital. Even after twenty-nine straight hours of hard, frustrating work, she charges toward me as though there were no tomorrow. The star of the ASA Tel Aviv water polo team and the national team gives me a compassionate smile. I try to get my wind back.

Exactly a month ago, the women’s water polo league finished its games. The league is pretty amusing with barely six teams: Hapoel Petach Tikva, Kiryat Tivon, Yokneam, ASA Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, which has already disbanded. But the league is not the story. The real tale took place over the past year, when officials of the Israeli Olympic Committee and its operational department, the Elite Sport Department, decided to gamble on the women’s water polo team as a favorite for the 2016 Rio Olympics. There was supposedly some logic to the idea. There are not many significant teams in Europe, the criteria are fairly easy and it would be possible, finally, to bring an Israeli team to a victory the like of which we have not seen for a generation. In practice, the idea turned out to be a bit problematic. The team was quickly established a year ago and registered for the preliminaries in the European Championships as its first significant competition. The tournament included an embarrassing defeat (22:0) by the Spanish team, as well as an astronomical loss to the British team. Although the women are currently ranked last in Europe, there is a spark of hope, because in the last game they racked up a respectable loss of 13:10 to the Ukrainian team. Gili Lustig, the chairman of the Elite Sport Department, admitted that if such results were to continue, they would reconsider spending money on this sweet but hopeless project. But the women do not care. They themselves are a little surprised that their hobby could turn into the Olympic hope of an entire nation.

Water polo practice always begins late at night, never before 8:00 p.m. Architect Shira Zucker arrives in her tony threads after having finished planning a building in one of Tel Aviv’s prestigious areas. Dr. Lichter arrives, wearing her white lab coat, from the Internal Medicine Department at Ichilov Hospital, and Naomi Itah, who has a doctorate in physics, arrives with all kinds of glass containers from the laboratory as if she were about to do research on the university’s water. Then comes Kargola the graphic designer and Gili Hadar, a high-ranking marketing director and the scion of a distinguished water polo dynasty. Several enthusiastic team members of high-school age arrive in their school t-shirts. Carmit, an events coordinator, has just given Yannai, her two-month-old son, his last bottle, left him in her husband’s faithful hands, and headed off to practice. This tough, long-serving team member is the life of ASA Tel Aviv and, some would say, of women’s water polo in Israel. It is not a good idea to meet her underwater. It could also end up being pretty painful and unpleasant (believe me). Afterwards, Aya and Dana arrive. They go home together after practice and met through the sport – but then comes the evening’s first hitch. The guard does not allow Aya, a hydrotherapist, inside because a week and a half ago, there was an unpleasant incident involving one of the security guards, and now there is an order not to allow her to practice. Dana, a teacher and the team’s goalie, is in solidarity with her partner, and after all their teammates’ pleas come to nothing, they turn around and leave in a bit of a huff.

During practice, Dr. Lichtman, 28, does not stop getting goals even from half the court away. She can lift the ball to an impressive height over the water, and she looks unstoppable. She does not let the fatigue of twenty-nine straight hours of work confuse her, and I feel sorry for anyone who dares to try to get the ball away from her. Afterward, she goes out to get some air. Her blue eyes look pretty tired, but it is clear that there is a great deal of adrenaline in her body.

“I grew up in Tel Aviv, and have been swimming since I was young. When I was seventeen, as a cadet, I started to study medicine. I was a physician in the Golani Brigade, the Armored Corps, the Artillery Corps and now I am doing my residency in internal medicine at Ichilov Hospital. It’s very hard for me. I have a crazy schedule. Sometimes I start my rotation at 7:30 a.m. and work until 12:30 p.m. the next day. I have a chronic sleep shortage, work six to seven rotations per week, deal with very complicated cases and all the time there is so much work to do in the Department of Internal Medicine that it’s inconceivable. After a long shift, I do my shopping on the way home, clean the house, grab maybe an hour of sleep, go to the doctors’ demonstration at the Cinematheque until 8:45 p.m and then comes my big bonus: practice. That’s where I let it all out, get rid of all the stress, clear my mind and calm my nerves – during practice and during games. I’m also a member of the Israeli team. I practice until 10:45 p.m., get out of the water, go home, raid the refrigerator and sleep,” she says.

The practice session goes calmly until Segal Tepperberg, 25, a student in physical education, arrives, goes berserk, charges toward Zucker the architect and pushes her as far under as she can. Zucker pleads for a gasp of air, but Tepperberg is on fire. Nothing can stop her. Originally from Jerusalem, where she grew up, she says that when she sees water and competition, she loses interest in everything but the ball and the goal. Afterward, she relaxes her grip and says, “There’s a story that everyone in the world of water polo knows and has talked about, and has never seen anything like it. In one game, I just started punching – but really punching, not just little blows – a member of the opposing team. Fists flew. There was slapping, kicking, pulling at bathing suits, the whole thing. I grabbed her in every place on her body and fought with her. Nothing could stop me. The referee stopped the game. We were in the middle of the pool and we kept hitting on each other as hard as we could. Oh, how I went for her, I was so hot to attack her! Back then, I didn’t have good technique, so I hit. In any case, if a girl’s bathing suit doesn’t get ripped at some point, she’s not much good. This is an aggressive game. This is where we go to take out all our stress, and it can’t always be nice and sweet,” Tepperberg says, recalling the fight.

Ducks on the water

The whole business that is known as water polo in the Holy Land is supervised by Dr. Yitzhak Koren, a senior orthopedist with a long history in Israeli sports. A plump, good-hearted man, a mid-life crisis led him to become the chairman of the Water Polo Association, a volunteer position. “My children played water polo, and that’s how I caught the bug,” he says. Koren is amazed to discover the ridicule and contempt of Israeli Olympic officials toward the sport. “The Sport Administration wants to bring a team to the Olympics, so it gives the women’s team 246,000 shekels per year, which isn’t enough for anything. Certainly not when they have to pay the Wingate Institute for practice space, which costs a fortune, travel to tournaments abroad, a salary for the coach and many other expenses. This is a very modest budget. For example, handball receives a budget of 3.2 million shekels per year. In the entire state of Israel, there isn’t a single suitable pool or building where the team practices in which there is not a rubber duck floating on the water, picnic baskets and toy balls and inflatable tubes that belong to families on vacation. The pools where they practice aren’t suitable for the game because of their depth, and there are no times set aside for practice. But I’m optimistic. This whole story with the women is for the next Olympic Games. The department is starting to wake up. We started teams for young girls and for teenage girls and three men’s leagues. We’re investing a lot in the youth, and it will bear fruit,” he says, full of hope.

Benny Lang is the professional manager of ASA Tel Aviv (a local empire) and of the Water Polo Association. In the past, he was a star of the water polo team of Hapoel Givat Haim. He comes to every men’s, women’s and children’s practice, and everything about the ASA team points to the main problem of water polo in Israel. “The swimming coaches are afraid of water polo. That’s why they don’t send the children to us. At the age of 14, they already know who has a future in swimming and whom they’ll keep as a ‘cash kid’ to bring in money. If there were cooperation between the sports, that would contribute a lot to water polo. It’s true that there’s a shortage of pool hours and buildings and there are other problems too, but we have to start somewhere, and as I see it, this is the main thing,” he says.

Afterward, during the seasonal games, Lichter is absent from practice because she wanted to take a vacation abroad. Other team members do not arrive and, as stated, the league games end on a weak note, hoping for better days ahead. Carmit, the oldest team member at 35, explains that even with the money, they must fight just to keep the sport alive. “In about 1994, they started women’s water polo in Israel. The first team was here in ASA. They got a bunch of swimmers together, started announcing that they were establishing a team, and all kinds of girls came. It was only two years later that the league was established, because they had managed to establish three teams in the whole country. Several years ago, from 2004 to 2007, the sport was dying. They closed the national team, the local teams disbanded, and there was nothing here. It was a desert. Then I said, hey, I’ll start a team again. Everything was by word of mouth. Some of the women came from handball, a few swimmers, another few friends, like the ones who were on another team, and two and a half years ago we started a team out of nothing, and it even won competitions and awards. This is a small sport of a few people who are absolutely devoted to it, and there’s also some unwanted wheeling and dealing around. There are never pools or goals. There’s not enough awareness of this sport. Everything’s subject to discrimination. Everything is based on the women’s love for the game. Look, I came here for a game and left my two-month-old son, Yannai, with his father and a bottle. I hope that he won’t scream too much and that my devoted husband will manage with him,” she says with a smile.

Maybe we’ll meet next summer

Mickey Hadar, a member of Kibbutz Givat Haim, is not only the devoted father of team member Gili Hadar and a die-hard fan, but is also the one who comes to every practice and game with his sons, Uzi and Gadi. The two players have built excellent careers in water polo, including at prestigious colleges in the United States. Mostly, Mickey Hadar is responsible for Givat Haim’s 22 championships and 18 cups, “The Maccabi Tel Aviv of water polo.”

“To tell the truth, I’m a bit excited,” says the 66-year-old Hadar. “Today, the level is lower. At one time, my men’s team tied with the big Croatian team. I’m sorry to say that today, there isn’t a high level of physical fitness. This is a tough profession. When I see Gili playing and suddenly making a goal, it’s a great pleasure for me.”

The summer is approaching its end. We will not be participating in the London Olympics, of course. Still, everyone is optimistic, talking about how no other women’s team in any ball sport will be going to the Olympics except for water polo.

The women’s situation looks well even compared with that of the men. There, the criteria are tougher and the teams impossible. The young generation of the team is the great hope for Rio 2016. Ohr Pilak, 14, is the youngest player on the team, and after the last practice, she is taking Lior and Shir, both 17, Noa, 15 and others for pizza and a good movie in the nearby shopping center.

Michal Avidan Lustig, an attorney and the director of the financial department of the Netanya municipality, is hurrying home. She left her two-and-a-half-year-old twin girls there with her husband, who is praying that she will come home already. Gili, Yael, Gal, Shira, Naomi, Carmit and others plan on going to some dimly-lit pub to celebrate the end of a tough season. They say that next year will be better. “We bust our butts all day, but there’s nothing like going to practice. We miss it already. Next year, we are so coming back. We’ll tear up the league.” The women smile in embarrassment. Nobody is really promising that they will get to Rio or even to next season’s opening practice. Still, they believe in their hearts that love will triumph and that maybe, by mistake, in five more years Koren and his group of women will be doing the samba in the Olympic pool in Brazil.

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