Ze'ev Friedman (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

: זאב פרידמן; 10 June 1944 – 6 September 1972) was an Israeli flyweight

weightlifter Weightlifting or weight lifting generally refers to physical exercises and sports in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells, barbells or machines. People engage in weightlifting for a variety of different reasons. These can ...

. A member of the Israeli Olympic team, he was killed in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

Biography

Ze'ev Friedman was born in

Prokopyevsk Prokopyevsk ( rus, Прокопьевск, p=prɐˈkopʲjɪfsk) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. Population: History It was founded in 1918 as the settlement of Prokopyevsky () from the existing vill ...

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1944. In 1960, he moved from

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

to Israel. He began his sports career as a

gymnast Gymnastics is a group of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, artistry and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, sh ...

, but later switched to weightlifting. He was a member of Hapoel Kiryat Haim sports club. He won a

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

at the 1971 Asian Weightlifting Championships. In 1972, Ze'ev Friedman competed at the

1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and officially branded as Munich 1972 (; ), were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. It was the ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

as a weightlifter. He placed 12th, one of the best achievements of any Israeli athlete at the time. On 5 September, members of the Palestinian Black September group broke into the Israeli team's dormitory and took hostage several Israeli athletes and coaches including Friedman. After protracted negotiations, the kidnappers brought the hostages to an airport via helicopter and killed them during an attempted rescue by Munich police and Bavarian border guards. The autopsy report, by the Forensic Institute of the University of Munich, concluded that Friedman had died from internal bleeding and also noted that a watch worn by the 28-year old weight lifter was still ticking when the autopsy began, giving a time of 7:51pm.

Biography

References

Further reading