A historic championship: less than a year before the Olympic Games, the Israeli team in rhythmic gymnastics won the gold medal in the all-around competition at the World Championships held in Valencia on Friday evening.
The team led by Ayelet Zussman first registered the score of 32.65 in the combined exercise preliminaries of the Israeli gymnasts. But the score that brought Israel to first place was the hoops exercise where the team received 38.150 points in the hoops exercise. The team finished with a total score of 70.800 points in the all-around and overtook China and Spain. President Yitzhak Herzog congratulated the gymnasts, "On behalf of the entire State of Israel, you deserve a big hug for a historic achievement."
Meanwhile, Israel finished fourth in the national competition, which combines the results of the team and individual gymnastics performances.
National Team Gymnasts: Ofir Shaham (Hapoel Ironi Netanya), Diana Savratzov (Maccabi Tel Aviv), Hadar Friedman (Maccabi Makefet Petach Tikva), Liza Benchuk (Hapoel Rishon LeZion Ramat Eliyahu), Romy Pritzki (Maccabi Tel Aviv), Shani Bakanov (Maccabi Haifa). One of the assistant coaches is the Olympic champion Linoy Ashram.
Another achievement was added to the national team's record when the gymnast Daria Atmanov won a bronze medal last night (Saturday) in the individual all-around competition. She didn't hide her excitement: "I still can't believe that I finished my first World Championship with a medal. I didn't intend for it, I just wanted to enjoy myself; in the end, there was a nice surprise."
