For the Israeli team, the road to Qatar was quite an adventure. First, for three months, Artem Dolgopyat hadn’t been able to get a permission from the army to travel to Qatar and only finally got it a day before the flight. Then the tickets were rebooked to another flight last minute and the team had to spend many hours in Amman where they had a layover. In addition, there was a problem with their visas – the passport numbers in the Qatari visas did not match their actual passport numbers, as Ynet reports. In Qatar, the treatment that the team received has been very good so far but all the teams somewhat suffered from the storm that hit Qatar on Saturday and led to flash floods and ceiling leaks in the training gym.
Couldn’t believe the storm today here in Qatar! 😂😂 #world #championships #storm #flood #rain pic.twitter.com/42GV1ELslL
— Dominick Cunningham (@domcunningham) October 20, 2018
While the Israeli team is wearing warm-ups without the name of the country or the flag, the Israeli flag is supposed to appear in the arena and the anthem will be played if an Israeli gymnast wins gold.
Jacki Vishnia, the manager of the Israeli delegation, told Ynet:
“This morning, the organizers checked to see if the [Israeli] flag was ok, they played “Hatikva” [the Israeli anthem] and we signed that everything was in order, so we hope that when we will arrive at the arena, the organizers will honor their promises”.
“We were very well received and we are happy with the hospitality. Now we will focus on the competition”.
Alexander Shatilov has been recovering from an injury this past year and has stayed a bit in the shadow of his younger teammate, Artem Dolgopyat, but he hopes to make the floor final at Worlds:
“I’m hungry for the medals, especially in such a competition. So, I’ll do everything I need to in order to get onto the medal podium. I have every chance of winning a medal again at the World Championships because I’m still at a high level and everything depends on me. But my first goal is to get into the final. After that, if I’ll do a good routine, anything is possible”.
Photo: Israeli Gymnastics Federation
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