“I hope that they are happy up there,” Fridman said. “When I return to Israel, I'll go to the memorial place to show them the gold medal.”

. . . Men and women waving their flags sobbed as they sang along with Fridman. . . . Horns blared in the stands. Delirious fans chanted, “Hey, hey, Is-ra-el.” . . . . Somehow, some way, half of Tel Aviv danced with the champion on a platform meant to hold one stationary adult. . . . “An amazing event,” said Yossi Shabi, a flag-waving Israeli fan. “This is a time for all of Israel to come together. With so much war going on, this is a time to celebrate history.”

And a time to honor the past. “This is a great way to make a tribute to the Munich victims,” said Baruch Ingberg, a 48-year-old Tel Aviv resident. “But I don't believe Olympic officials will ever mention it in opening ceremonies. It's not fair, but they won't do enough for the victims' memories. This is the world. You have to be Israeli to understand.”

Fridman understood. The Israeli team had made a pre-Games pilgrimage to the Tel Aviv monument to those slain in Munich. For too long, Olympic officials have tried to wish away their worst hour, refusing even to admit that the choice to resume the '72 Games was a horrible mistake.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, a member of the Belgian sailing team at the Munich Games, spoke at a memorial service here last week, finally showing the respect for the victims his predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch, never showed.

This was an improvement; as of 2000, the International Olympic Committee had refused to attend any memorial for the slain athletes.

(An unfortunately too accurate spoof of how the Guardian would cover Fridman's triumph.).

In some ways, the world was much more hostile to Israel in the 70s than now. This article from 1976 describes a world where “international games are a precise barometer of international relations” (aggravated by the Soviet alliance with the Arab bloc that produced the “Zionism is Racism” resolution and later condemnations of Israel for rescuing its citizens from Entebbe):

In 1973 at the World University Games in Moscow, [Yuval Wischnitzer, an Israeli long-distance runner] was booed by 100,000 Russian fans. Since then the situation for an Israeli runner has worsened. He is not invited to France. Eastern Europe blacklists him totally. The Third World countries discouraged his application and last year in Stockholm he was able to run in the Dagens Nieter Games only by appearing under the colors of a Swedish club with no mention being made of his Israeli nationality. . . .

At those same World University Games in Moscow in 1973 in which Wischnitzer was booed, Red Army soldiers destroyed Israeli flags in the stands during basketball games. In the 1974 Asian Games in Teheran, Esther Roth, Israel's premier runner, won a gold medal. The Chinese silver and bronze medal winners refused to shake her hand. In 1975 India refused the Israeli team a visa, thus preventing it from playing in the world table tennis championship in Calcutta. . . . Wischnitzer's body is not political but his world is. . . .

Wischnitzer says that after the Arab-sponsored U.N. resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism he thought the next step was for Israel to be kicked out of the Olympics. He feels in any event that if the Olympics of 1976 happened to have been located in a Third World country Israel certainly wouldn't have been allowed to participate. “We're lucky the Olympics are in Montreal,” he says.

The Sports Illustrated article is worth reading in its entirety for its profiles of other athletes affected by Munich and poignant bits like this:

A physiologist in Israel discovered that until the age of 17 Israeli boys have among the best physiques in the world and are the kind of prime population from which great athletes come. But after 17 everything goes. The boys wear off their genius in the army. By the age of 21, it is too late for a young man to recover his promise.

At least in sports, Israel is treated with more normalcy than 25 years ago, but Jewish athletes everywhere in the world have felt a bit more vulnerable since 1972. Especially in Munich.

Thirty years after 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympic Games in Munich, Israel's entire contingent at the European track and field championships are staying at the same housing complex where their countrymen were taken hostage in 1972. The Israelis say it was an important symbolic gesture for them to be here.

“You feel shivers when you close your eyes and think about the terrible things that happened,'' said distance runner Nili Abramski. ”But we had to come and show that even the most terrible things won't stop us.''

During her 10,000-meter race, Abramski ran with ''72'' on one palm and ''11'' on the other, painted in blue lipstick. Her nails are painted blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag.

A large stone tablet, often adorned with fresh flowers, marks the site of the abduction at Connollystrasse 31. The victims' names are written on the tablet in German and Hebrew, with the words “In honor of their memory.''