Israeli gold medal returned
Published: June 11, 2005
Israel’s only Olympic gold medal was returned to windsurfer Gal Fridman on Saturday after a young girl found it in a forest not far from where it was stolen.
The girl, 11, did not immediately understand the importance of the discovery when she found the medal among pine needles and brought it to her parents, her father, Jamil Baria, told Channel 2 TV.
A safe containing the medal Fridman won in Athens last year and a bronze medal he won in Atlanta in 1996 was stolen Tuesday from his parent’s home in the northern town of Karkur. The girl found the safe and its contents in a forest near the Arab town of Fureidis.
Police returned the gold medal to Fridman in a small ceremony Saturday at a police station in northern Israel. The bronze medal was not recovered.
“This is a great relief and welcome news,” Fridman told Army Radio on Saturday.
Fridman’s mother, Deganit, said she had been very upset by the theft.
“Despite the theft, they still couldn’t take from him what he achieved,” she told Channel Two. “But still it meant something, it was symbolic.”
Fridman said that he had believed he would get the medal back since he didn’t think any one would succeed in selling it. He would not say where he would store the medal from now on.
Fridman, whose first name means “wave” in Hebrew, became an instant national hero last August when he won Israel’s first gold medal.
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