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Friday August 15, 2008

After dad dies, Israeli breaks record

by allon sinai
jpost.com

Alon Mandel wept quietly as the Israeli flag was raised and “Hatikvah” played at the Olympic Village late last week.

There was just no way the swimmer was going to stop his tears at the flag-raising ceremony: His greatest supporter, his father, had died the day before.

Mandel was awakened at 4 a.m. Aug. 7 to be told that his father, Kostya, 51, was killed after falling off a ladder in the garden of his Netanya home.

Mandel’s mother, Rina, initially asked the chiefs of the Olympic Committee of Israel not to wake her son, but two hours later she decided to notify him by phone, concerned that he might find out the terrible news from another source.

“Initially I thought that I was being awakened for a surprise drug test. I couldn’t imagine any other reason to wake me,” the 20-year-old said.

Rina adamantly insisted that Kostya would have wanted Alon to swim as scheduled.

“You absolutely have to stay,” she told her son during a telephone call that was later played on Israeli television.

She said after the call: “And he better put in the performance of his life.”

That he did. In his preliminary heat, he broke a national record in the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 1:59:27 minutes, and finished in fourth place. Despite his achievement, Mandel did not advance to the semifinals.

Rina and one of Mandel’s sisters, Maya, were in the stands at Beijing’s National Aquatics Center for the race Aug. 11.

Mandel, who trains year round at the University of Michigan, only qualified for the Olympics after a long saga in which his father played an important supportive role.

The butterfly specialist thought he had missed out on the games after finishing the 200-meter butterfly race at March’s European Championships in 13th place, one spot below advancing.

His Israeli record time was just two-hundredths of a second slower than what was needed to meet the criteria, but a month ago it was confirmed that Greek gold medalist Ioannis Dry-monakos had been punished for testing positive in a drug test. Mandel was added to the delegation.

“My mother and father were ideal parents, and I’m only here thanks to them,” Mandel said.

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