‘Those who labeled me model or party boy did so at their own peril’

Age 25 is normally a wonderful age for an expert swimmer. By then, he has gained sufficient expertise, and his bodily situation is often at its peak. In 2002, Eithan Urbach was making ready for an additional intense season. He was 25, with two Olympic finals behind him, the one Israeli swimmer to have achieved so twice. Then, throughout one in every of his practices on the Wingate Institute, amid the Sisyphean swimming by which all one sees is the underside of the pool and the athlete is alone with himself, he started recalculating his path.

When he acquired out of the pool, he instructed his coach, Leonid Kaufman, the person with whom he had additionally begun his profession, with finality: “Leonid, that’s it. I’m done with swimming.” Just like that, in a couple of phrases.
But Kaufman was not shocked. The coach was the one one who knew the Israeli swimmer in all his strengths and flaws.

“Leonid understood immediately,” Urbach says. “It was typical of me to think in the water during practice, and I reached the conclusion that I had already achieved everything I wanted in swimming, and I had no chance of advancing toward new goals, like an Olympic medal, which is the real thing. So why torture myself with illusions?”

That was how Israeli swimming parted methods with the person who made historical past and have become the primary blue-and-white swimmer to achieve a person Olympic last, solely two years earlier, at Sydney 2000.

Eithan Urbach was the most-covered swimmer within the Israeli media. Almost weekly, objects had been revealed about his coaching, particularly in ynet’s mum or dad newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. He obtained the sort of consideration normally reserved for a complete soccer group, a unprecedented factor for his sport.

There had been good causes for it. Professionally, he was a trailblazer who wrote a number of extraordinary chapters within the historical past of Israeli swimming. At the identical time, he was thought-about a colourful persona, served because the face of a number of business firms at a time when that was far much less widespread and spoke his thoughts immediately in statements that had been something however routine.

“Those who tried to label me a ‘model’ or a ‘party boy’ did so at their own peril,” he says at the moment at 49, 24 years after his last pool session on the Wingate Institute. “In simple terms, I was a dedicated swimmer who gave everything to the last drop. Ask my coach, who still coaches the national team today.”

Urbach first thought he would start his sports activities journey as a basketball participant for Maccabi Haifa. “Unfortunately, we were late to the first practice, and I immediately understood from the people running the program that I would not become a basketball player,” he says. “My parents looked for an alternative and chose a swimming class. Maccabi Haifa was then a leading club in the sport. I’m still grateful for the path my parents set me on.”

Urbach, the son of gynecologist Dr. Yaakov Urbach and Esther, a nurse, was about 12 on the time. “My mother even chose to work night shifts so she could take me and my sister Michal, who joined the class, to the pool. Later, we began waking up at 5:30 a.m. to get to practices. That would be the hour that accompanied my career. It soon became clear that my physique was well-suited for swimming.

He began competing in national meets, and Kaufman spotted his potential. “At 16, I was invited to the Wingate Institute, and it was decided that I would join the swimming boarding school. It was a significant period for me because, for the first time, I left home. As it later turned out, I also did not return,” he says.

“Eithan was a legend, and not only because he was the only Israeli swimmer in two Olympic finals,” Kaufman says at the moment. “He was not an ordinary swimmer, but one you had to know how to reach. He certainly was not a swimmer who could swim and train like a robot.”

The “first Urbach miracle” occurred in 1994, on the European Junior Championships within the Czech Republic. Before that, he had stood out in freestyle and was purported to characterize the nationwide group in that occasion, however then Kaufman had a flash of perception.

“Coach Leonid looked at the statistics pages and told me: ‘I see that your freestyle time ranks you 15th going into the championships. By contrast, in the 200-meter backstroke, you are ranked seventh. What do you think about putting everything into backstroke instead of freestyle?’ If Leonid says it, that means he knows. I made the switch, but even in my wildest imagination, I did not expect what actually happened.”

Urbach continues: “A backstroke swimmer does not see the swimmers ahead of him. I was very surprised to touch the wall first in the final. Not bronze, not silver, straight to gold. I was almost in shock.” Everyone was. It was Israel’s first medal ever on the occasion.

And here’s a story that exhibits simply how sudden the achievement was: “Before the medal ceremony, the organizers asked for the Israeli anthem, ‘Hatikvah,’ so they could play it at the ceremony. The Israelis apologized because they had not brought a tape. No one thought any of us would finish first. They began urgent searches in the Jewish community and at the Jewish Agency to see whether anyone had a tape. In the end, they found one. I remember standing there, moved, and singing loudly, Eretz Tziyon v’Yerushalayim’.”

“It was amazing”, Kaufman says. “Only seven months earlier, he had not been Israeli champion in any event, and suddenly he was the first Israeli European champion. Later, it would become clear that this was typical of a special swimmer, in this case Eithan.”

Urbach provides about that competitors: “There was something crazy at the start of our stay there. For the first time, we shaved our heads for the races. We walked around the city, and people who thought we were neo-Nazis called the police. We understood they wanted to arrest us, and only after we showed our passports to the officers did they let us go.”

That was Urbach’s breakthrough. “In 1997, I already traveled with the senior national team to the European Championships in Seville,” he says. “As with the juniors, Israel arrived at that championship without ever having won a medal before. I reached the 100-meter backstroke final with the best time, and from all the excitement, my face went numb. I overcame it through willpower, swam well and brought home the silver medal, Israel’s first at the senior level.”

Before that got here the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. For the primary time, Israel’s medley relay group managed to safe its place within the Games. Urbach, who had established the 100-meter backstroke as his essential occasion, was thought-about a number one candidate to be a part of it. But then Eran Groumi, who had already retired, determined to return to competitors to struggle for the appropriate to be the backstroke consultant. Although Urbach already dominated the occasion, he was removed from pondering he would settle the competition between them simply.

In the top, the Swimming Association selected a goal race by which the winner would go to Atlanta. Groumi, who swam one warmth earlier than Urbach, completed in 58.00 seconds. Though it was not like him, Urbach grew to become tense. He missed the purple markers within the pool meant to assist backstrokers orient themselves within the water, slammed into the wall and bled from his face.

That was what he wanted to reset. Urbach gathered himself through the race, and when he reached the end, he seemed anxiously on the clock and noticed 57.71. A ticket to his first Olympics. Groumi, who had competed within the earlier Olympics in Barcelona, had been defeated.

The quartet that traveled, Vadim Alekseyev, Dan Kutler, Yoav Bruck and Urbach, didn’t merely participate within the Games, however reached the primary Olympic last within the historical past of Israeli swimming. It ended with eighth and final place, but additionally with loads of pioneering glory. For Urbach, it was solely the warm-up.

Between 1998 and 2000, Urbach had two main competitions deliberate on the fifth continent. In the primary, the 1998 World Championships in Perth, he reached the 100-meter backstroke last and completed seventh in 55.97, after qualifying fifth from the semifinal in 55.62.

The race on the Olympic pool in Sydney in 2000 was a outstanding repeat. In the semifinal, Urbach’s true take a look at whereas going through expectations to ship Israel’s first particular person swimming last, he swam beautifully and certified fifth with a wonderful nationwide file of 55.31. In the ultimate, he swam comparatively slowly, 55.74, and completed final, though his skill was value a greater putting. Still, it was a historic achievement.

Kaufman is satisfied the joy harm Urbach’s race when his hand touched the lane of one in every of his opponents. Urbach himself attributes the eighth-place end to an power drop after he secured the purpose for which he had skilled within the previous years: reaching the long-awaited last.

As famous, his fame additionally reached past sports activities. As it was recognized on the time: “the weekly Urbach item.” Today, Kaufman, 67, in his second time period as nationwide group coach, says: “Unlike the vast majority of swimmers, Eithan used to express his opinion on various issues, including in training. A swimmer, in principle, needs to be quiet and do what he is told. Eithan wasn’t that kind of swimmer.”

“Still,” Urbach says, attempting to decrease the flames from these days, which in fact ceased to be related after his retirement, “even if there were arguments, Leonid and I were still together.”

After completing business administration studies at Reichman University in Herzliya, Urbach opened a swimming school at a country club in Holon.

Now he can explain: “Swimming is a hard sport, one that often demands mental ability because the training repeats itself. I can say that, overall, I handled the practices well. Sometimes there were three a day. It is exhausting, but I have no complaints.”

Kaufman provides: “Eithan was not a robot who did everything he was told. An example? He went to study at Auburn, Alabama, one of the leading swimming colleges in the United States. In the middle of his second year, he turned to the people there and told them: ‘It was good and interesting, but I’m done. I’m going back to Israel.’ The fact is, he came back to train with me.”

Ben, 8, Maor, 6, and Gal, 4, the three sons of Urbach and his spouse, Rita, who works in excessive tech, are nonetheless younger however are already warming as much as swimming. They might start their common sports activities coaching with him. “They know swimming is a hard and challenging sport, and they will make their own considerations. Whatever they choose, I will respect it.”

Did you inform them about waking up at 5:30 a.m.?
“It’s tough, especially over a long stretch. If one of them chooses swimming, they will have to get used to it. At this stage, before they have begun an organized career, they enjoy swimming.”

There was main progress in Israeli swimming within the 2000s. Yakov Toumarkin completed seventh within the 200-meter backstroke in London, Anastasia Gorbenko has excelled on the world and European championships, however we nonetheless haven’t come near an Olympic medal. Do we not have the expertise for it?
“I’m confident someone will reach that level eventually. After all, producing a medalist from a pool of thousands is far more realistic than from just dozens, or even a few hundred. The talent is out there and can be found. It’s not predetermined.”