Frankly, I don’t know how they did it.  Our government doesn’t support athletes until they’ve proven themselves and they can’t prove themselves unless they can afford the proper training.  

I do have some experience with this.  On the board of the Daniel Rowing Association, I have seen the paralympic participants grow and succeed as a result of the financial support generously provided by individuals.  

My granddaughter was the national champion in her age group in aesthetic gymnastics until the whole organization began to suffer from a lack of a place to work, and the financial burden on the parents was really great.  Of course, any parent would be willing to do their best to support a habit like that – and there are varying degrees of cost at different stages.  But there has to be a national scaffolding, a professional framework.

and yet Limor Ashram and Artium Dolgopyat won gold medals, and bronze in two other categories, one of which was women’s Taekwondo and the other mixed Judo.  That means more than half of the medals won in this first time ever year went to women.  I have a feeling this is in part due to Gal Gadot…