Andrea "Andi" Murez ( he, אנדראה "אנדי" מורז; born January 29, 1992), is an Israeli-American Olympic swimmer. She swam for

Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics Israel competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. It was the nation's sixteenth appearance at the Summer Olympics. The Olympic Committee of Israel confirmed a team of 47 athletes, 22 men and 25 wom ...

. She will represent Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She represented the

United States at the 2013 Summer Universiade The United States competed at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia. Medalists Athletics The United States will be represented in athletics. Men ;Track & road events ;Field events Women ;Track & road events ;Field events ...

in Kazan, Russia, where she was a 4 × 200 m freestyle

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

ist and a 4 × 100 m freestyle

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...

ist. Murez is also a

Maccabiah Games The Maccabiah Games (a.k.a. the World Maccabiah Games; he, משחקי המכביה, or משחקי המכביה העולמית; sometimes referred to as the "Jewish Olympics"), first held in 1932, are an international Jewish and Israeli multi-sp ...

champion, and Maccabiah record holder, as well as an Israeli national record holder. She has won 17 medals at the Maccabiah Games, 12 of them gold. Murez holds the Israeli national records in the 100 m and 200 m freestyle.

Early life and education

Murez was born to Melanie (Goodman) Murez, who runs a language translation company (Language.net), and Jim Murez, a computer consultant and contractor who runs the Venice Farmers' Market (he swam competitively in high school and in college during his freshman year). She is Jewish, and was raised in the United States. Her paternal grandfather, Joe Murez, grew up in pre-WWII Austria on the Danube River, swam competitively for the Jewish Hakoah Vienna Sports Club in the 1930s, and related how during Hitler’s annexation of Austria,

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

would gather around the pool to beat up Jewish swimmers. He immigrated to the United States in 1938, serving in the

U.S. Army Intelligence Corps The Military Intelligence Corps is the intelligence branch of the United States Army. The primary mission of military intelligence in the United States Army is to provide timely, relevant, accurate, and synchronized intelligence and electron ...

. He then became one of the largest garlic growers in the world, and ultimately introduced his granddaughter Andi to swimming. Her father's stepfather,

Raymond Federman Raymond Federman (May 15, 1928 – October 6, 2009) was a French–American novelist and academic, known also for poetry, essays, translations, and criticism. He held positions at the University at Buffalo from 1973 to 1999, when he was app ...

, who was Jewish, was 14 years old when his parents hid him in a small stairway landing closet as Gestapo arrived at the family home in Nazi-occupied France. His family was taken away, and his parents and two sisters were killed in the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Federman hid from the Nazis on farms in southern France during the Holocaust. He later became a leading backstroker on the French national team, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1947, where he became an English professor, an expert on author

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

, and a novelist. Murez's brother, Zachary (Zak), who is three years older than she is, set five swim records at Venice High School. He won 10 medals (four of them gold) in the 2003 Pan-American Maccabi Games in

Santiago, Chile Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital (political), capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated Regions of Chile, region, t ...

, and then swam for the Yale University swim team, before studying for a master's degree in computer science at UC San Diego. Murez attended Venice High School, in Los Angeles, California, graduating in 2009. In high school, she was on the national honor roll. She also attended

Hebrew school Hebrew school is Jewish education focusing on topics of Jewish history, learning the Hebrew language, and finally learning their Torah Portion, in preparation for the ceremony in Judaism of entering adulthood, known as a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Hebr ...

at Mishkon Tephilo in Venice, Los Angeles, and was Bat Mitzvah. She attended

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

on a swimming scholarship, majoring in human biology, and intends to eventually pursue a career in biology. Murez immigrated to Israel in 2014. She resides in

Netanya Netanya (also known as Natanya, he, נְתַנְיָה) is a city in the Northern Central District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa, between Poleg stream and Wingate I ...

, Israel, at the Wingate Institute, with other Israeli swimmers. She intends to enroll at the Tel Aviv University Medical School beginning in fall of 2017.

Swimming career

High school

Swimming for the Venice High School Gondoliers, Murez won eight City Section individual championships and set four City records. In the Los Angeles City Finals in May 2008, she set the city’s record for the 100 freestyle. That year she also qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials. As a senior in the Spring of 2009, Murez won the 100-yard freestyle in a Los Angeles record time of 49.63. She also broke the 200-yard freestyle record, and holds the section records in the 100-yard butterfly and 100-yard backstroke. She was named the team's Most Valuable Player for four years, was team captain her senior year, was an eight-time CIF sectional champion, and set four CIF sectional records. Murez also swam for the Santa Monica Swim Club Team from 1999 to 2009. The Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame named her the 2010 Female Jewish High School Athlete of the Year.

College

She swam for the

Stanford Cardinal The Stanford Cardinal are the athletic teams that represent Stanford University. As of June, 2022, Stanford's program has won 131 NCAA team championships. Stanford has won at least one NCAA team championship each academic year for 46 consecutive ...

, and was a three-time NCAA All-American. In March 2012 during her junior year, Murez and three Stanford teammates set the U.S. record for the 400-yard freestyle relay (3:10.77) while winning the 2012 NCAA Swimming Championships. They also won the NCAA title in the 200 freestyle relay. In March 2013, at the 2013 Pac-12 Women's Championships, she came in second in the 200 yard freestyle (1:44.42), and third in the 100 yard freestyle (47.86). Swimming for the

in July 2013, she won a gold medal in the Women's 4 × 200 m freestyle relay (7:55.53), a silver medal in the Women's 4 × 100 m freestyle relay (3:38.60), and a bronze medal in the Women's 4 × 100 m medley relay.

For Israel

Murez was the first Israeli swimmer to finish the 200 m freestyle in less than two minutes. In the summer of 2015, Murez set the Israeli national record in the long course 200 m freestyle, at 1:59.03. She also set the Israeli national record in the long course 100 m freestyle, at 54.40. In December 2015, at the 2015 European Short Course Swimming Championships at the Wingate Institute in

, Israel, Murez set a new Israeli record of 1:56.34 in the 200 m, breaking by over two seconds the 4-year-old record that Amit Ivry had set at the 2011 Israeli Winter Championships. She also set a new Israeli record in the 100m freestyle, at 52.88. In May 2016, Murez competed in the

2016 European Aquatics Championships The 2016 European Aquatics Championships took place from 9 to 22 May 2016 in London, United Kingdom, in the London Aquatics Centre. It was the thirty second edition of the event, and the second held in the same year as a Summer Olympics. Hosts Gr ...

, placing 5th in the

100 m freestyle The 100 metre freestyle is often considered to be the highlight ( Blue Ribbon event) of the sport of swimming, like 100 metres in the sport of Athletics. The first swimmer to break the one-minute barrier ( long course) was Johnny Weissmuller, ...

(54.89; directly behind the world record holder in the 200 m freestyle, Sarah Sjöström of Sweden), 13th in the 200 m freestyle (1:59.91), and 15th in the

50 m freestyle 5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on eac ...

(25.26).

Maccabiah Games

At the

2009 Maccabiah Games The 18th Maccabiah Games ( he, המכביה ה-18 ישראל תשס"ט), were held in July 2009. According to the organizing committee these were the largest games held yet. These Games were the world's fifth-largest sporting event, behind the Ol ...

in Israel, the "Jewish Olympics" that are one of the largest sporting events in the world, swimming for the United States Murez won nine medals (five gold and four silver). She broke all-time Maccabiah Games records while winning gold medals in four individual events: 50 m freestyle (26.44);

(0:56.44); 200 m freestyle (2:03:45); and 200 m Individual Medley (2:20.74). She set

Maccabiah Games records The Maccabiah Games (a.k.a. the World Maccabiah Games; he, משחקי המכביה, or משחקי המכביה העולמית; sometimes referred to as the "Jewish Olympics"), first held in 1932, are an international Jewish and Israeli multi- ...

in the 50 m, 100 m, and 200 m freestyle. She earned her 5th gold medal anchoring the USA 4 × 100 m Freestyle Relay team, which set an all-time Maccabiah Games record (3:53:55). Her four silver medals were in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay, 4 × 100 m Medley Relay, 100 m backstroke, and the 200 m backstroke. She competed again in the

2013 Maccabiah Games The 19th Maccabiah ( he, המכביה התשע-עשרה) were held during July 18 to 30, 2013. The Games brought together 7,500 competing athletes, making it the third-largest international sporting event in the world after the Olympic Games and ...

, winning five gold medals (including the 100 m free, in 55.09) and two silver medals while setting a number of swimming records swimming for the United States. She received the 2013 Maccabiah Games Most Outstanding Athlete Award for Women. In total, as of 2013 she had won 15 Maccabiah Games medals, including 10 gold medals. At the

2017 Maccabiah Games The 2017 Maccabiah Games ( he, משחקי המכביה 2017), also referred to as the 20th Maccabiah Games ( he, המכביה ה-20), were the 20th edition of the Maccabiah Games. They took place from 4 to 17 July 2017, in Israel. The Maccabiah ...

, competing as an Israeli, Murez won the women’s 100m freestyle, with a time of 55.15 seconds, and set a new Games record as she also won the 200m freestyle in 1:59.80.">"Murez Picks Up 2nd Gold Of Maccabiah Games With 1:59 200 Free,"
''SwimSwam Magazine''.

Olympics

Murez was the first Israeli woman to qualify for the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

, her first Olympic Games. On April 17, 2015, she qualified for the 50-meter freestyle event with a time of 25.12 seconds. Four months later, on August 13, she qualified for the 100-meter event. She swam for

. Ill with sinusitis, she withdrew from the 100 m backstroke and 200 m freestyle heats, as she tried to recover in time for the 50 m and 100 m freestyle heats. In the Women's 100 m freestyle heat she came in 30th with a time of 55.47.

Honors

In 2016 she was inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

References

External links

* * * * * * *
Andrea Murez
at the

2016 Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro ...

website (archived)
Israel Swimming Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murez, Andrea 1992 births Living people Israeli female swimmers Israeli Ashkenazi Jews American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Israeli people of Austrian-Jewish descent American people of French-Jewish descent Israeli people of French-Jewish descent American people of Israeli descent Jewish American sportspeople Jewish swimmers American emigrants to Israel Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic swimmers of Israel People from Netanya Stanford Cardinal women's swimmers Maccabiah Games medalists in swimming Maccabiah Games gold medalists for the United States Maccabiah Games gold medalists for Israel Maccabiah Games silver medalists for the United States Competitors at the 2009 Maccabiah Games Competitors at the 2013 Maccabiah Games Competitors at the 2017 Maccabiah Games Universiade medalists in swimming Universiade gold medalists for the United States Universiade silver medalists for the United States Medalists at the 2013 Summer Universiade Venice High School (Los Angeles) alumni American Ashkenazi Jews Swimmers at the 2020 Summer Olympics 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women