Roslyn gymnast Sirota to compete in upcoming Maccabiah Games

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Roslyn gymnast Sirota to compete in upcoming Maccabiah Games

By Michael J. Lewis

Recent Roslyn High School graduate Shani Sirota will be competing in the upcoming Maccabiah Games in Israel, beginning in July. Photo courtesy of Roslyn High School.

Shani Sirota has always wanted to travel to Israel.

Now, the recent Roslyn High School graduate has a very good reason to go, and she’s bringing about 20 family members with her.

Sirota, who finished eighth overall in last spring’s New York State gymnastics championships, including two top-five individual event finishes, was selected last month to compete in July’s Maccabiah Games, a prestigious event for Jewish athletes held in Israel every four years often referred to as the “Jewish Olympics.”

Sirota will be one of five women gymnasts competing in the Maccabiah Games Open Division, for athletes 18 and up.

And since she’s already going, her family has decided to make the trip, too.

“I wanted to do it because I’d never been to Israel, and it’s cool to see all these Jewish athletes together,” Sirota said. “And once I got selected, my parents decided to plan a whole trip, with cousins, uncles, aunts, about 20 of us.
“It should be a great time.”

The last time the Games were held, in July, 2017 the Maccabiah Games hosted 10,000 athletes representing 80 countries, making it the third largest event in the world, behind only the Summer Olympics and the Asian Games.

Sirota said she was originally supposed to try out for the team in person, before the team’s coaches, in November, but a spike in Covid cases forced cancellation of the tryout.

Instead, potential team members were asked to send in videos of their routines last winter, with Sirota finding out she’d made the team last March.

“She’s always been this calm, confident athlete who never gets rattled,” said Roslyn gymnastics coach Stephanie Orfini. “She practices exactly how she competes, at a very high level, and she’s been so great to coach all these years.”

Sirota, who said one of her gymnastics inspirations, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, also competed in the Maccabiah Games, and family leave for Israel on July 5, with the Game continuing through July 26.

The gymnastics competition is a one-day event, on July 18, leaving plenty of time for sightseeing.

“The first 10 days we’re there is training, and then we have our competition on the 18th, and then there’s time to look around,” Sirota said. “I definitely want to see the Western Wall and the Dead Sea. “I’m really going for the experience and to have fun, and to compete somewhere else in the world I’ve never been before.”

Three weeks after Sirota gets back to Roslyn, she’ll head down I-95 to start her career at Division I gymnastics power University of Maryland.

 

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