The Israeli national anthem was played on Wednesday evening for the third time at the European Championships in Belgrade, after a gold medal-winning performance in the pool by Israeli swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko, who competed in part with the Israeli women’s 4x200 freestyle relay team.
After sharing the gold medals in the 4x200m relay and the 4x100 medley, Gorbenko went it alone in the 400m individual medley, outswimming all her fellow competitors and taking first place with a time of 4:36.05 minutes.
The 20-year-old Gorbenko led at the start of the race, lost the lead, then recovered and left the breaststroke competitors in the dust with a huge gap of over four seconds, a Walla report described her performance. She maintained her advantage until the last touch of the wall and was eventually 2.91 seconds ahead of 15-year-old Vivian Jackel of Hungary and 4.19 seconds ahead of her older compatriot, 35-year-old Susanna Jakabus.
Gorbenko stacking up medals
This is already the fifth medal in Gorbenko's career at the continental championship and Israel's 19th in total. The Walla report describes the victories as giving more hope for the Israeli team at the Paris Olympics which will start in a little over a month.
Without Gorbenko, the relay team in the 4x100m reached the finals of the evening. Leah Polonsky and Ayala Spitz swam first, with Daria Golovati bringing Israel to fourth place, and Andi Morz came close to gold.
The team, overall, remained in fourth place with a time of 3:41.13 minutes - a new Israeli record and nearly beat Poland who finished third. Hungary took the gold (3:36.77) and Denmark the silver.
While winning a silver medal in Qatar last February, Gorbenko was booed by spectators of the competition. Gorbenko simply said in response that she is "here with the flag for my country.”