RAMAT GAN, Israel, July 20, 2009 – 2008 U.S. all-around champion David Sender of Arlington Heights, Ill., won five medals at the 2009 World Maccabiah Games at Ramat Gran Stadium in Tel Aviv, Israel. The U.S. delegation earned 19 total medals.
In the open, singles male division, Sender took three gold medals, winning on still rings, vault and horizontal bar with 14.65, 15.575 and 14.6 respectively. He earned silver in the open all-around with a final score of 84.225 and on pommel horse with a 13.05. Benjamin Rudolph of Naperville, Ill., finished third in the all-around with 80.25. David Frankl of Franklin Lakes, N.J., won an individual event bronze on pommel horse with a 12.5 and parallel bars 12.55. Joshua Steves of Houston, Texas, took bronze on vault with 13.6. Joshua Ungar of Longmeadow, Mass., scored a 13.1 on horizontal bar, earning bronze. Frankl also won gold in the all-around in the junior, individual division, while Steves took bronze.
Simone Freidman of Annandale, Va., and Ilana Gordon of San Carlos, Calif., each earned silver medals in the women’s junior, individual division; Freidman on floor with a 12.625 and uneven bars with 10.825, and Gordon on vault with 13.075. Hannah Popper of Forest Hills, N.Y., won bronze on floor with a score of 11.9.
The 18th World Maccabiah Games is the world’s third largest international athletic competition, with more than 9,000 of the world’s best Jewish athletes from six continents and more than 60 countries. The Maccabiah Games are a quadrennial Jewish Olympics held in Israel the year following the Olympic Games and feature competition in open, Masters, junior and disabled divisions. The Games are organized by an International Maccabiah Committee and are sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee and World Federation of Sports.
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Maccabi USA/Sports for Israel (MUSA) is the official sponsor of the U.S. Team to the World Maccabiah Games, the Pan American Maccabi Games and the Maccabi competitions in Europe and Australia.