Swimmer earns Israel 3rd medal in Rio Paralympics

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Swimmer Inbal Pezaro earned Israel’s third medal in the Rio Paralympic Games, which close on Sunday.

The 29-year-old athlete won a bronze medal on Wednesday, coming in third in the 200-meter freestyle. Pezaro, who reached the finals in all five of her individual events in Rio, scaled the podium after clocking 3:38.20 minutes in the event.

The swimmer, from Kibbutz Yizrael, became paralyzed in her lower torso in childhood. She began swimming at age 5.

Pezaro won three medals in each of the previous two Paralympics, taking three bronzes in 2012 and three silvers four years earlier, while also claiming a silver and a bronze in Athens 2004.

Shooter Doron Shaziri, competing in his sixth Paralympics, had given the Jewish state its second d medal at the Rio Paralympics on Sept. 13, a bronze in the men’s R7-50m Rifle 3 Positions.

One day earlier, Israeli rower Moran Samuel also took home a bronze.

Some 4,300 Paralympians are competing in Rio, Brazil’s second largest city. Three weeks ago, Israeli judokas Yarden Gerbi and Or Sasson both won bronze medals at the Summer Olympics in Rio.