August 9, 2007
Ryan Berber participates in European Maccabi Games
Austin Tennis Academy alumni Ryan Berber recently represented England in the European Maccabi Games. Ryan competed in both singles and doubles and was the consolation finalist in Men's Singles.
Highlights from the Maccabi Games website:
The Maccabi is the international Jewish Sports Organization, present on the 5 continents, in 50 countries and numbering more than 400 000 members. Sports are not solely an instrument to reach individual and collective psychophysical health and equilibrium, but must be regarded a means to promote wholesome social values.
The Maccabiah Games place every four years in Israel and count as the most important sports event organized by the Maccabi World Union. The Maccabiah is an exceptional chance for youth to put themselves and their skills to the test, and not only in an agonistic sense. The young are taught that an agonistic confrontation must be a fair and just competition by which one measures courage to stand up to the challenge, the tenacity in striving for victory and the poise in facing defeat. Just as the Olympic Games, the Maccabiah is an occasion to tear down barriers and divides, to promote a spirit of encounter between cultures and civilizations.
Athletes from all around Europe, the Slavic countries, Russians, the Baltic nations, even Americans and Australians will all meet and compete. During the course of 2007, and not only in concurrence with the sporting event itself that takes place between July 4th and July 12th, a large number of cultural and recreational initiatives all linked to the Games will take place.
The first ever European Maccabiah were held in Prague in 1929, while the following year the Games came to Antwerp. Following a long interruption, a few years after the end of WWII, in 1959 the Games returned to vigor and the chosen city was Copenhagen. These 1959 EMG opened up for the next Maccabiah in 1962. Only by the end of the sixties the European editions of the Games assumed the structure that we know today: the Games are held every four years and are organized as a collective effort between the European Maccabi Confederation and the Maccabi Federation of the hosting nation. Each country chooses the teams and their composition. A large machinery working to receive more than 30 different European and non.-European countries, all united by the common objective of taking part in not only a great sports event, but to make come about a real opportunity of coming together as one.
The previous editions of the European Games were held in Antwerp (2003), Glasgow (1999), Amsterdam (1995), Marseille (1991), Copenhagen (1987), Antwerp (1983), Leicester (1979), Lyon (1963), Copenhagen (1959), Antwerp (1930), Prague (1929). In 2007 the turn to host the EMG, in its 12th edition, has for the first time come to Eternal City, Rome.
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