Esther Roth-Shahamorov


Esther Roth-Shahamorov is a former Israeli track and field athlete. She specialized in the 100-meter hurdles and the 100-meter sprint.

Biography

Esther Shahamorov was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. In 1973, she married Peter Roth, a gymnast, who became her coach. She has a son, Yaron, who was a national champion in fencing, and a daughter, Einat. After she retired from competitive sport she became a sports schoolteacher.

Track career

Records

She once held simultaneously five Israeli national records. One of them is still a record and two others held for over 20 years.
Roth won five gold medals and one silver medal in two Asian Games. She won golds in 100m hurdles and pentathlon and a silver in long jump in 1970, and three golds, in 100 m, 200 m, and 100 m hurdles, in 1974.

Olympics

At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Roth just barely missed qualifying for the final in the 100-meter sprint. She qualified for the 100-meter hurdles semifinal, but withdrew from the Games, together with the remaining members of the Israel Olympic team, after the murder of her longtime coach, Amitzur Shapira, and ten other members of the Israeli team, by Palestinian terrorists.
In 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal where she was the Israeli flag-bearer, Roth became the first ever Israeli athlete to reach the finals in any Olympic event, and she is still the only Israeli Olympic finalist in track events, when she finished 6th in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.04 seconds.

Maccabiah Games

Roth won the 100-meter race in the 1973 Maccabiah Games in 11.75; the 200-meter race in the 1977 Maccabiah Games in 24.03; the 100-meter hurdles in the same games in 13.50; and the long jump in the 1969 Maccabiah Games with a 19-foot, 3/4 inch jump.

Awards and recognition

In 1999, Roth was awarded the Israel Prize for sports.
She appears in the 1999 Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September in which she gave her impressions and feelings during the 1972 Munich Athletes hostages crisis.