THE World athletics Championships in Oregon were not the only place where Britain enjoyed a medal rush over the weekend after the Great Britain team competing at the Maccabiah 2022 Games in Tel Aviv went bronze.
Known as the ‘Jewish Olympic Games’ and purportedly the third biggest sports competition behind the FIFA World Cup and Olympics, the Maccabiah Games attracted over 10,000 athletes to Israel with the Padel competition located in Tel Aviv and run by the International Padel Federation.
A six-man team comprising player-manager Paul Gladstone, Martin Norden, Sam Jones, Sean Meyer, Andrew Cheytow and Mark Rubbins claimed bronze in the team event, beating Mexico, Argentina, and Paraguay en route.
But there was more glory last night when the star pairing of Sam Jones and partner Sean Meyer also won bronze medals with a fine third placed finish behind USA and France in the open event following a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Israel.
Team GB manager Gladstone was delighted with his side’s success: “Our playing pool was not the biggest but we managed to get together a good group of people and our aim was to medal with Sam and Sean and they did us proud by claiming the bronze medal last night.
“So, I would say that we have exceeded our aims and the feedback we have had from the other countries is that not only does Great Britain play padel but they have produced players who have trained for this event properly.
“In that respect we had an excellent coach in Nikhil Mohindra, who came along to work with us, as although he is a GB International he is non-Jewish so he could not play in the Maccabiah.
“But Sam has been training in Spain and Dubai, Sean also in Spain, so these guys understand padel, whereas some of the other guys resort to brute force and although they have good hands they don’t have the padel knowledge.
“We specifically worked and trained with padel coaches like Nikhil prior to the tournament and it certainly proved invaluable. Now the next stage is to bring more players into it and develop greater depth to our playing pool.
“On a personal note I just hope there will age categories in terms of the open and masters events as opposed to one big open event as that makes life very tough when you are in your 40s!”
But when it came to the team’s shining stars, Gladstone was keen to highlight the sparkling performances of No.1 pairing Jones and Meyer and he said: “There were group stages and Sam and Sean qualified top of their group and went all the way to the semis beating Belgium, USA, South Africa, France ‘B’ and Mexico before losing to France ‘A’ in the semis against two seasoned WPT players.
“Last night they then won 6-3, 7-5 against Israel to claim the bronze medals and that was a fitting reward for their fine performances in what were draining conditions with high humidity and temperatures which were in the mid-30s.
“At 22-years-old Sam has already played WPT, FIP and Premier Padel events but Sean Meyer is only 17 and is part of the junior GB squads and is a player of real potential and in my opinion they were the stars of the tournament.
“They are young and they are British and as a country we are not renowned for producing good padel players but they also have performed with great maturity.”
With talks going on during the event to set the groundwork for the first ever Maccabiah World Padel Championships, slated for Spain next year, it is clear that another area of huge growth for the sport has been discovered.
Gladstone, who along with partner Martin Norden was first to represent the UK internationally in the Maccabiah competitive arena at the Pan American Padel tournament in Mexico in 2019, will also manage the side ttaking part in the proposed World Championships.
He explained: “This was the main Maccabiah Games which are held in Israel every four years and after the 2019 event we pushed to get padel into Israel. They now have four courts in Tel Aviv in one venue and two in another, and the Israeli squad has been of an extremely high level.
“We are formulating a World Jewish Padel League and talks have been ongoing while we have been out here, aiming for next year, purely for padel in Madrid.
“There are governing bodies for every country with a Maccabiah and next year will be Spain for the inaugural worlds and then the year after the plan is for the UK. So it is really exciting times for padel within the Maccabiah framework.”
