There are veterans like an Australian gold medalist canoe paddler and Israel’s powerhouse judo team.
There are newcomers, like the youngest American female wrestler ever and Israel’s soccer team.
And there are athletes competing in events from fencing to beach volleyball to racewalking to air pistol shooting.
The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are around the corner, running from July 26 through Aug. 11, and dozens of Jewish athletes will be among the estimated 10,500 competitors representing roughly 200 countries in 329 events across 32 sports. The United States’ delegation features nearly 600 athletes, while Israel will have nearly 90 competitors, one of its biggest delegations ever.
Read on for a (nearly exhaustive) list of Jewish and Israeli athletes to watch as Paris 2024 approaches.
Is there a Jewish or Israeli Olympian we should keep an eye on? Shoot us a message at sports@jta.org!
Gymnast Artem Dolgopyat, Israel’s only active Olympic gold medalist
Artem Dolgopyat performs his floor routine during the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Oct. 7, 2023, in Antwerp, Belgium. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
When it comes to floor exercise, the artistic gymnastics competition, few are as accomplished as Ukrainian-born Israeli Olympian Artem Dolgopyat. The 27-year-old has won gold medals in that event in recent years at the Olympics, the World Championships, the European Championships and the Maccabiah Games.
Dolgopyat was born in what is now Dnipro, Ukraine, and by the time his family moved to Israel when he was 12, he was already a two-time Ukrainian national champion for his age group. He trained at the acclaimed Maccabi Tel Aviv sports club in his adopted home and went on to become the Israeli national champion in the floor exercise.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Dolgopyat earned Israel’s second-ever gold medal, and first in gymnastics. (Fellow Israeli Linoy Ashram won gold in rhythmic gymnastics days later.)
Amit Elor, youngest female wrestler in U.S. Olympic history
Amit Elor celebrates during the bronze medal match of the Wrestling Senior World Championships, Sept. 21, 2023, in Belgrade, Serbia. (Kadir Caliskan-United World Wrestling/Getty Images)
Amit Elor, whose parents are Israeli, is making her Olympics debut with the U.S. wrestling team. She is the youngest female wrestler in history to represent the U.S. at the Games.
At only 20, Elor is already a two-time world champion. She has also won gold medals at the 2023 Pan American Championships, the 2022 and 2023 U23 World Championships and at three consecutive Junior World Championships from 2021 through 2023.
Elor’s 2022 World Championship win, which came when she was 18, made her the youngest senior world champion in U.S. history. She currently ranks No. 1 in the U.S. in the 68-kilogram weight class, the group in which she will compete in Paris.
Canoe paddler Jessica Fox — and her younger sister, Noemi
Jessica Fox competes in the women’s kayak final during the 2024 ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup, June 7, 2024, in Prague. (Sam Mellish/Getty Images)
Aussie Jessica Fox, who is regarded as the greatest individual paddler of all time, is back for her fourth Olympics, where she’ll look to build on her collection of medals — one gold, one silver and two bronze.
Fox, 30, won her Olympic gold in the canoe slalom in the Tokyo Games, becoming the first-ever woman to win gold in the event. Fox had been among the athletes pushing for the canoe slalom event to be opened to women, which happened in Tokyo.
Fox’s Jewish mother and coach, Myriam Jerusalmi, won bronze in the K-1 (single kayak) slalom competition for France at the 1996 Olympics. Her father, Richard Fox, paddled for Britain at the 1992 Olympics. Her younger sister Noemi, 27, is making her Olympics debut in the women’s kayak cross event, which is being held for the first time in Paris.
Nick Itkin and his fellow Jewish fencing stars
Nick Itkin during the 2023 Pan Am Games, Oct. 31, 2023, in Santiago, Chile. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Fencing has quietly become a sport dominated by Jewish athletes in recent years, a trend led by Los Angeles native Nick Itkin, currently ranked as the No. 2 men’s foil fencer in the world. He was previously No. 1.
Itkin, 24, won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics to go along with a number of other recent medals and championships at major international fencing tournaments, as well as two NCAA titles. After winning a silver medal at the 2023 World Fencing Championships, Itkin became the first U.S. man, and third U.S. fencer overall, to win individual medals at back-to-back world championships.
Itkin is joined on the U.S. fencing team by Eli Dershwitz, the No. 3-ranked saber fencer in the world and a two-time Olympian who won gold at the 2023 World Championships in saber — becoming the first American man to do so. Dershwitz, 28, is the grandson of Holocaust survivors and a two-time Maccabiah Games gold medalist.
On the women’s side, Maia Weintraub, the No. 13-ranked woman foil fencer in the world, is a two-time U.S. national champion with several gold medals at fencing World Cups, the 2019 European Maccabi Games and in the NCAA. Weintraub, 21, was an alternate at the Tokyo Olympics.
And for Israel, Yuval Freilich, 29, who won a gold medal at the 2024 Epee Grand Prix event in Qatar, is the country’s first fencer to qualify for the Olympics since 2008.
Shooter Ada Korkhin, making her Olympics debut
Ada Korkhin, center, celebrates with her parents Yakov Korkhin and May Han at the USA Shooting Olympic qualifiers. (Joshua Schave)
Brookline, Mass., native Ada Korkhin was first introduced to air pistol shooting by her
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