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Thu., February 14, 2008 Adar1 8, 5768

Israel Time: 15:43 (EST+7)

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Sea Change

By Na'ama Lanski and Rami Hipsh

Tags: Shahar Zubari

The international ASA windsurfing competition, Eilat, winter 2006. The Red Sea is calm, the winds mild, and windsurfer Shahar Zubari, young (19) and lean, short and unknown, hovers across the face of the water and takes first place. Far behind, in fourth place, is Gal Fridman, the first and so far the only Israeli athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.

When the festivities died down and the interviews were over, Zubari and his buddies, all of them Eilati windsurfers, sat down in front of the TV. Two years later, what they saw still rankles: "They start to broadcast the report about the competition and all they talk about is Gal Fridman. Gal and Gal, the whole time it's Gal: why he lost, his physical condition, his plans, his prospects. Only at the end they barely mentioned that Shahar Zubari came in first."

His friends were outraged, insulted for him, and Zubari fired off an e-mail to the Sports Channel. "I wrote them: Shalom, I am Shahar Zubari from Eilat, and in my opinion your attitude toward young people and to this sport is absolutely wrong. Gal Fridman lost, a new generation has arisen and has achieved better results, but is being ignored. As though we didn't exist."

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The next day the Sports Channel called Zubari and invited him to respond in the studio. "They murdered me," he recalls. "[Sports anchor] Miri Nevo said something like, 'Listen, Gal Fridman is an Olympic champion, a gold medalist, and you are still young - didn't you get carried away? Don't you think you're getting ahead of yourself?' But I was there. I knew exactly what was happening, who I am and what I am capable of, with all due respect to Gal Fridman. He always talked so self-confidently about not having any competitors, that he has everyone in his pocket, so they listened to him and not to the kid from Eilat, because, hey, no one knows who he is and he just finished competing in the youth division."

Today, three weeks after winning a bronze medal in the Neil Pryde World Championship competition in New Zealand, there is no doubt that Zubari was right. Fridman placed an unflattering 32nd, well behind the other Israelis: Omri Hazor, who finished 29th, and Nimrod Mashiah, who reached 16th place. Zubari was the only one who achieved the Israeli criterion for participation in this summer's Beijing Olympic Games. Increasingly, those in the know are betting that he will return from China with a medal.

Lazy kid

He's so good, they say, because he's an iceman. Nothing touches him. In competition Zubari is totally concentrated, focused, detached from the surrounding hubbub. Very different from the light Zubari, the good-time, happy-go-lucky guy of the training sessions and the everyday routine. He says of himself that he's a lazy kid. So much so that his nutrition is faulty because he doesn't have the strength to cook. True, as a youth he was world and European champion in the Mistral competition, but until two years ago did not give his all to the sport.

The turning point, which turned the situation topsy-turvy and removed Fridman from his unchallenged place at the top, occurred three years ago. After the Athens Olympics, it was decided to replace the Mistral windsurfing board, which dominated the Olympics for a decade, with the Neil Pryde board. Fridman enjoyed world supremacy with the Mistral; the Neil Pryde board gave all windsurfers a new start.

The Hapoel Ocean Center in Eilat, where Zubari has windsurfed since early adolescence, became one of the first clubs in the world to acquire the new Olympic board and train its windsurfers on it. "While Gal Fridman was riding a bicycle, Shahar achieved an advantage with the new model," says Roni Meir, the center's director and Zubari's professional manager. "I don't say that derogatorily. The whole country here took its time, and that gave us a kickstart of about half a year, and no one has yet been able to close that gap."

In the meantime, Zubari's attitude toward the sport underwent what can be termed a sea change. "Shahar never trained seriously in his life until the new model arrived," his trainer says. "All his accomplishments came without serious training: three times a week, unless it was the week before a competition, and then he trained four times in that week."

"I have remained lazy with the new model, too," Zubari smiles, "but I came to training sessions more because there was an atmosphere of work. But what really made me practice harder was that people irritated me. That was my fuel. There are athletes who don't do well under pressure, but I am the exact opposite. I work best when things are tilted against me, which hasn't happened often in my career. It bugged me that only Gal Fridman existed for everyone, while I was the one with the significant achievements."

Zubari, now 21, is a genuine Eilat beach boy. In school he sat next to the window so he could feel the wind and know immediately when the sea was good for windsurfing. His parents, Vered and Ze'ev (known as "Poodle" for his black curls), lived in Sharm al-Sheikh until Israel pulled out of Sinai and have been Eilatis ever since. She is a secretary in a law office, he an electrician in the Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute, but a windsurfer at heart. He was the one who put Shahar on a windsurfing board when he was five or six, along with his sister, Tal, who is three years his senior.

When Shahar was seven, his father bought the children professional windsurfing equipment. To ensure that they would not be carried out to sea, he tied the board to a large boulder on the beach, so he would be able to pull him back. "At first my sister was better than me, until she stopped, because she was afraid it would bloat her body and she would not be feminine," Zubari says. "I kept at it and became better and better with fun boards, until she decided to return and do competitive windsurfing here in the club - and I also wanted to."

The kid won't eat

As a boy, Zubari took part in competitions for youngsters and won small cups that were prepared especially for his age group. The achievements piled up when he started to enter youth competitions. The first was in 2000, when he finished second in the world championships for youths up to the age of 15 (Aloha board). At the age of 13, he did an accurate calculation for his mother: in another eight years, when he would be in the army, he would be able to take part in the Olympics. Classified by the army as an outstanding athlete, Zubari serves three days a week at the naval base in Eilat, from 8 A.M. until midday, leaving him plenty of time to windsurf.

He is almost always in the water: a virtuoso with fun boards, diving freely or with equipment, swimming since he was a toddler, a water-skier and a participant in Triathlon meets. For his bar mitzvah, the whole family went to Hawaii to surf (Zubari's mother doesn't surf: she is in charge of the equipment). "When you surf," he says, eyes opening wide, "you achieve true inner tranquillity. You are alone, with yourself, everything is open before you, with only the noise of the board striking the waves. When the sea is flat you hear shhhh ... When the sea is stormy and the waves are high you hear pchhhh ... I don't have to think about what to do, because I have been surfing so long that it is already part of me. When the sea is turbulent, my whole body is turbulent and I want only to take out all my aggressions, all the adrenaline that floods over me. You can vent everything in the sea. When I was younger I would surf far out to sea and just shout. That's freedom."

Roughly speaking, the sea winds are divided into three categories: strong, intermediate and weak. When a strong wind is blowing, manager Meir explains, it's best to be "heavy and strong." With an intermediate wind, "the best thing is to be light and strong, and when the wind is weak it's best, again, to be heavy and strong, because you have to pump the sail a lot, to work hard, and that requires a mass of muscle."

In an intermediate wind, there is not much chance of defeating the compact Zubari. He is able to burst ahead and stay there. Fortunately, the site of the Olympic competition typically has intermediate to weak winds. Zubari, though, is not relying on that and is focusing on building himself up - meaning, in his case, mostly putting on weight. "Nutrition is the weakest part of Shahar," Meir says. "His father is a small Yemenite, and Shahar received those genes. Luckily for us, he grew tall, while both his parents are relatively short. The problem is that he is never hungry, and he is really deficient nutritionally, and the result is that, combined with a heavy training schedule, he is sick a lot. If he doesn't get sick and if he puts on weight, I will arrive at the Olympics completely calm."

Zubari's nutrition is the key to success in China, his trainer says. "And that is where we have done the most work. The trainers received precise instructions. He has to eat a great deal, it's not important what. We don't care if he eats only cakes. Unfortunately, he is not on track here, and even when we get him to the optimal weight for this board, which is 68 kilograms, by the time he arrives at the competition he goes back down to 64 kilos because of the stress and the tension and the irregular meals, and that is not enough. He has to be bigger. Someone will have to be with him in Beijing whose task will be to feed Shahar all the time."

Surprising invitation

Zubari's advantage in a weak-intermediate wind gave him another opportunity to ensure his place in Beijing. In the previous world championships, held at Lake Garda in northern Italy, Zubari finished a disappointing 34th. But there, too, he was successful when the winds were weak or intermediate. "I got back to Israel," he relates with great enthusiasm, "and suddenly, out of the blue, I turn on the computer and see an e-mail from Tom Ashley, the world number 2, inviting me to train with him in New Zealand. He wanted to learn from me how to do better in my winds."

The result was two and a half months of intensive training in New Zealand and Brazil alongside Ashley, now the world champion. "There was a terrific atmosphere and good training sessions. I trained for three weeks in Brazil in insane winds." The two were joined by other top surfers, such as Joao Rodriguez of Portugal, a silver medalist in the world championships, and Ricardo Santos of Brazil, world champion in 2007.

"It was a turnabout," Zubari says proudly, "and it came to me like a gift from heaven. Tom is known as someone who trains a lot, a true athlete who works at whole other levels. He's on a board 35 hours a week. He takes a lot of massages, gets chiropractic treatment and is totally aware of his body - and he eats superbly."

Didn't he shoot himself in the foot? You might end up beating him in Beijing.

Meir: "Ashley took into account that Shahar would not achieve the levels he did. He didn't suspect that Shahar would be able to improve and excel in strong winds, because in those conditions he usually finished in 40th place. He took people like Gal Fridman into account, but not really Shahar."

Zubari: "There is a saying: Leave your friends close but your enemies even closer. If you are suspicious and cautious you will not have anyone to train with and so no way to get better."

Ashley paid for Zubari's stay in New Zealand, including the expensive plane ticket, residence in an apartment-hotel and the daily board. But the trip also had less pleasant byproducts. About two weeks before the trip, the veteran surfer Amit Inbar, a former world and European champion, was appointed trainer of the Israeli team.

"In my opinion, Amit was offended by the fact that I supposedly did not give him a chance and went off to train for a lengthy period," Zubari says, and returns to square one: "In every interview he talked only about Gal, that Gal could do it, and Gal and Gal and Gal."

Meir: "The problem arose from the big difference that exists between Shahar in training and Shahar in battle, and Amit got the impression that Shahar was pretending in training, thinking small. He took me aside for a talk and said that Shahar had to cooperate and contribute, that he was under caution. I told Shahar to be careful, because Amit was out to get him. That is a totally political scene. A team trainer who trained Nimrod Mashiah at Michmoret [in northern Israel] and was built up in the media thanks to Gal Fridman, leaving Shahar as a fifth wheel. It was obvious that there would be a problem."

An unconscionable act

During preparations for the competition held last April at Palma de Majorca, Meir relates (and Zubari confirms), "Inbar and Aaron McIntosh, Ashley's trainer from New Zealand, who are old friends from their days as Olympic competitors, spoke one evening, and McIntosh told Inbar what Ashley and Shahar worked on in New Zealand. These were very important things that they worked on, and no one in the world knew about it. And who does he suddenly tell? The trainer of Fridman and Mashiah, who are rivals of both Shahar and Ashley. The next morning Inbar told Shahar that he had heard from McIntosh about their training, and Shahar immediately told Ashley, 'Your trainer talks too much - he told Inbar about our training sessions.'"

Zubari: "And then Ashley fired McIntosh and told Inbar about it. Inbar called me in for a talk and said I had betrayed him and the national team, that I would get no help from him, absolutely none, other than the regular budget that I am entitled to according to the association, and that's all. I finished that competition in seventh place, first among the Israelis. Gal finished in 18th place."

Meir: "Inbar also told me that Shahar had hurt the team, that he had done something unconscionable. In my view, he was out to get Shahar, and at the first opportunity kicked him off the team, which played into our hands. Shahar doesn't have to be in a place where he is not wanted. In the end, Inbar is no longer the trainer of the national team."

Why not?

Zubari: "Because he bet on the wrong horses."

"The appointment I received was to train Fridman ahead of Beijing, so naturally I dealt with him more," Inbar says in response (though the Israel Sailing Association confirms the account of Meir and Zubari that Inbar was appointed to train the team). "We worked on a framework of teamwork among all the surfers; I wanted Shahar to train with us but he preferred to train alone in New Zealand. For his own reasons, and rightly so, he did not want to cooperate with us. As a soloist, I understand him. The problem lies in the way he did it. He hurt me personally. He did something inappropriate, undignified and unacceptable, and I told him that if this was the spirit we would not be able to work together.

"I started to cooperate with the New Zealand trainer Aaron McIntosh, and he [Zubari] told Ashley that McIntosh was revealing all the secrets to me and all the things they worked on. Because of him the New Zealand trainer was fired immediately, and this is one of the greatest surfers, against whom I competed 15 years. So at the interpersonal level, things didn't flow."

Because of the confrontation with Inbar, Zubari says, he had to prove himself in the next competition, "so the association would decide to support me. I got uptight again, because I felt I had already proved myself enough, and as usual that was the ideal situation for me, and I finished second in the competition in France."

After that his prospects remained shaky, but the scale nevertheless was tipped in his favor. Zubari went to a training camp in Portugal, where, Meir says, "he went wild with the fun board and suffered rib injuries. I am in favor of a little fun to release energies, but it put Shahar on the sidelines." He came to the European championships barely able to hold on to the mast of the windsurfer craft. He warmed up from one cruise to the next and forgot the pain. He finished in sixth place."

It was precisely because of that relatively poor show that Meir stopped worrying. "I had an ace in hand," he explains. "If he could achieve that result when he was injured, I knew he would ride roughshod over everyone from then on."

In the world championships in Portugal, Zubari sustained a toe bruise that became infected. "Every day my leg got more and more swollen, until I wasn't able to stand on the board. I told myself to hang in there just to finish in the first 10. We had to be careful with the painkillers, because they do drug tests, and antibiotics also weaken the body." He finished eighth, returned to Israel and checked into Meir Hospital in Kfar Sava.

"A lot of things went wrong but in the end it all worked out," he says. "After a month in the hospital I went to the pre-Olympic tryouts in China without training. That was the worst competition I had, and I got to 14th place. After that I won the Israeli championship at Michmoret."

Now even Amit Inbar praises him. "There is no doubt that Shahar is doing things the right way," he says. "He is succeeding and working with a good team. He can still make progress and I believe he will be able to accomplish things in the Olympic Games."

Far from home

Zubari likes to be far from home and feel independent. In January, just days after returning from two months in New Zealand, for the world championships, he flew to Rome to spend a week with his partner of the past year, Italian windsurfer Flavia Tartaglini, who is ranked fifth in the world. The two have known each other for years, since they took part in youth competitions. Tartaglini is considered an excellent windsurfer, but has a hurdle to overcome in the form of her mate on the Italian team, Alessandra Sensini, the world champion, who, according to Zubari, "makes mincemeat out of everyone."

Zubari will be accompanied at the Olympic Games by Eilati trainers who are devoted, not famous and have no Olympic medals. His fitness trainer, Shlomo Zaks, was Zubari's sports teacher in high school. He was hired by the family for a modest sum in order to train Zubari and increase his muscle mass. Zaks will pay for the trip to China out of his own pocket. Zubari's personal surfing trainer, Rafa Balilius, has been working with him for 10 years, since Zubari was a boy. He is a friend of the family and used to be their neighbor in Eilat. Balilius stopped training Zubari six years ago and since then has been working as an aquasport teacher in Eilat schools. He also owns a small plant that makes engine covers and sails for boats and yachts.

"Half a year ago I told Shahar that I wanted to go back and train beginners in windsurfing," Balilius relates. "He told me to drop that nonsense, that he was going for the Olympics and needed me. I thought he was just going through some sort of euphoria and that I wasn't good enough for him, but he was completely serious. The association says, and rightly, that there is a problem: I haven't trained people for four years and I don't have competitive experience abroad. I can't evade that. They were right. But Shahar kept insisting and finally decided to take me privately. He is very obstinate and he got what he wanted. I came to work almost for no money, out of great faith and desire just to help Shahar. But you know how it is in sports: there are good results that you can't argue with, you get to the top and then suddenly everyone starts paying attention to you and they crown you king.

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