Oren Smadja stunned the Israeli judo world as the National Team coach submitted his resignation just a few days after lighting a torch at the Independence Day celebrations.
“With a heavy heart and after no less than 15 years in which I served as coach of the Israeli men’s judo team, I was forced with great sadness to submit my resignation to the Israeli Judo Association,” he wrote on social media. “You have known me since I was a teenager, you know that judo is my life and my life is judo. But precisely because judo is part of my soul, I can no longer, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that’s it, I’m giving up and submitting my resignation.”
Smadja continued: “I am worried, worried about the future of Israeli judo. That is why I felt that I had no choice but to sacrifice myself for the future of the sport. Maybe my resignation will make someone understand that if I give up, it is time for a thorough examination of what is happening behind the scenes. I suffered for years because I did not want to harm the athletes, but my inhibition only made the situation worse. So today I say enough.”
The first men’s Olympic medalist, Smadja, who won a bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics (1992), has served as the coach of the men’s team since 2010.
He led the Israeli team in the last Olympics and won Olympic medals as a coach with Ori Sasson, in the team competition in Tokyo and with Peter Paltchik in Paris, shortly after his son Omer was killed serving in the IDF in central Gaza last June.
IJA responds with sadness
The Israel Judo Association responded: “We received Smadja’s resignation with sadness. We have no intention of entering into an argument with a bereaved father despite the inaccuracies in his words. Smadja was and always will be a central part of the glorious legacy of Israeli judo.”
Smadja’s resignation comes shortly after the men’s team’s failure at the European Championships in Montenegro, where its athletes achieved only one victory in the entire championship, which was their worst continental competition of all time.
Between 1999 and 2021, the men’s team never failed to win a medal two years in a row, at worst they would go only one year without stepping on the podium, however, the streak is now at four years in a row.