How Israel loses

The Telegraph

By Uriel Heilman · August 19, 2008

With Israel's chances of taking home an Olympic medal dwindling rapidly – their best remaining chances are in various water sports – Israelis are thinking about what it means to lose.

A Top Ten list about losing by 10 Israeli Olympians, compiled in Ha'aretz by Nir Wolf, doesn't exactly portray Israeli athletes as gracious in defeat.

Maybe Israelis just don't know how to lose because the national ethos is that the Jewish state cannot afford defeat, writes former CNN correspondent Jerrold Kessel in Ha'aretz. He writes: "Rather than decrying 'another failure' and 'medals down the drain,' shouldn't we be awfully proud when an Israeli shooter or swimmer places 12th in the world - the 12th best of more than six billion?"

The Jerusalem Post offers this tribute to Israeli sailors Nike Kornicki and Vered Buskila, who finished in fourth place in the 470 Class competition at Beijing.