Esther Roth-Shahamorov (original) (raw)

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Israeli track and field athlete

Esther Roth-Shahamorov

Roth-Shachamorov in July 2007
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing Israel
Asian Games
Gold medal – first place Bangkok 1970 100 m hurdles
Gold medal – first place Bangkok 1970 Pentathlon
Gold medal – first place Tehran 1974 100 m
Gold medal – first place Tehran 1974 200 m
Gold medal – first place Tehran 1974 100 m hurdles
Silver medal – second place Bangkok 1970 Long jump
Asian Championships
Gold medal – first place 1975 Seoul 100 m
Gold medal – first place 1975 Seoul 200 m

Esther Roth-Shahamorov (Hebrew: אסתר רוט-שחמורוב; born April 16, 1952) is a former Israeli track and field athlete. She specialized in the 100-meter hurdles and the 100-meter sprint.

Early and personal life

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Esther Shahamorov was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family.[1] In 1973, she married Peter Roth, a gymnast, who became her coach. She has a son, Yaron (born 1974), who was a national champion in fencing, and a daughter, Einat. After she retired from competitive sport she became a sports schoolteacher.

She once held simultaneously five Israeli national records. One of them is still a record and two others held for over 20 years.

Roth won five gold medals and one silver medal in two Asian Games. She won golds in 100m hurdles and pentathlon and a silver in long jump in 1970, and three golds, in 100 m, 200 m, and 100 m hurdles, in 1974.

At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Roth just barely missed qualifying for the final in the 100-meter sprint. She qualified for the 100-meter hurdles semifinal, but withdrew from the Games, together with the remaining members of the Israel Olympic team, after the murder of her longtime coach, Amitzur Shapira, and ten other members of the Israeli team, by Palestinian terrorists.

In 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal where she was the Israeli flag-bearer, Roth became the first ever Israeli athlete to reach the finals in any Olympic event, and she is still the only Israeli Olympic finalist in track events, when she finished 6th in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.04 seconds.[4]

Roth won the long jump in the 1969 Maccabiah Games with a 19-foot-3⁄4-inch (5.810-meter) jump.

She won the 100-meter race in the 1973 Maccabiah Games in 11.75, and the 100 m hurdles in 13.5 seconds.[5][6] She won the 200-meter race in the 1977 Maccabiah Games in 24.03; and the 100-meter hurdles in the same games in 13.50.

Awards and recognition

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In 1999, Roth was awarded the Israel Prize for sports.[7][8]

She appears in the 1999 Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September in which she gave her impressions and feelings during the 1972 Munich Athletes hostages crisis.

  1. ^ "Track & Field: Women's top-four performances", Jewish Sports Review, Vol. 9, No. 11, Issue 107, p. 17, January/February 2015.
  2. ^ "After 42 years, Israeli women's 100-meter record broken". The Times of Israel. April 19, 2014. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  3. ^ Jacob Northbrook. "Olga Lansky Charged with Avoiding Drug Test: Her Record Vacated". Jerusalem Online. Retrieved 2015-03-19.
  4. ^ "Jewish Women and Women's Issues in the Yishuv and Israel" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 15, 2011. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  5. ^ "U.S. Brothers Finish 1, 3 in Decathlon in Israel". The New York Times. July 20, 1977 – via NYTimes.com.
  6. ^ "Maccabiah Protest Bars 2 Guest Athletes". The New York Times. July 17, 1973 – via NYTimes.com.
  7. ^ "Rozin, Roth-Shahamorov get Israel Prize - Jerusalem Post | HighBeam Research". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  8. ^ "Israel Prize Official Site – Recipients in 1999 (in Hebrew)". Archived from the original on 2011-09-21.