Spitz leads U.S. delegation to Maccabiah Games

Seven-time Olympic gold medal winner leads 800 at ‘Jewish Olympics’

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updated 4:10 p.m. ET July 11, 2005

KFAR NETTER, Israel - Mark Spitz has returned to where he won his first gold medal 40 years ago, this time leading an 800-member delegation at the Maccabiah Games.

Spitz went on to win seven gold medals and set seven world records at the ill-fated 1972 Munich Olympics, a feat that has never been equaled.

Now, Spitz is the head of the U.S. delegation at the Maccabiah Games, known as the “Jewish Olympics,” which begin Monday.

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After visiting a horse farm near Israel’s seacoast between Tel Aviv and Haifa, Spitz recalled the pleasure and the pain of the 1972 Games.

The day after he won his seventh gold medal with his last world record, Spitz, an American Jew, was whisked away from the Olympic Village after Palestinian terrorists attacked the Israeli quarters.

In a shootout with German police, 11 Israeli athletes, held hostage by the terrorists, were killed.

These days Spitz sports a head of gray hair, and his trademark black mustache is no more, but the memory is still vivid.

He called the terror attack in 1972 “the greatest tragedy of the Olympic Games.” He said it was a special honor to serve as the torchbearer in the 1985 Maccabiah Games along with the three daughters of one of the Israeli athletes who was killed.

Spitz was just 15 when he won a gold medal in the 1965 Maccabiah. He said his participation in the international Jewish games helped launch his success as an international champion.

“It’s the vision for a number of athletes who come to the Maccabiah that they might one day be able to participate in future Olympics,” he said.

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Claiming to have no opinion about Israel’s role in the Mideast conflict, Spitz said he plans no meetings with politicians here.

“I thought politics were difficult to understand in the U.S. Here it’s even worse,” Spitz said. However, he plans to meet this week with people wounded in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The former champion said he stays away from the pool these days. Asked if he was still swimming, the Olympic legend looked down at his 55-year-old physique and said with a chuckle, “Not well.”

Instead, the Los Angeles-based husband and father works as a stockbroker and spends his free time traveling the world delivering motivational speeches, with Hong Kong next on the schedule.