Shlomit Nir (; also "Nir-Toor"; born November 7, 1952) is an Israeli former Olympic swimmer.

Early and personal life

Nir was born and raised on a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

, HaTzafon, Israel. Her grandparents left Ukraine to start a kibbutz, which is where her father was born. Her brother was killed while fighting as a soldier in the Sinai in 1969. She has three children.

Swimming career

Nir began swimming at age 11, and became the Israeli national champion within six months. She competed for Israel at the 1965 Maccabiah Games, winning the

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

in the women's 200 metre breastroke as a young teenager.

1968 Olympics

Nir competed for Israel at the 1968 Summer Olympics, at the age of 15, in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

. Swimming in the Women's 100 metre Breaststroke she took 3rd in her heat with a time of 1:20.9. Swimming in the Women's 200 metre Breaststroke she took 5th in her heat, again with a time of 2:58.5.

1972 Olympics

Nir competed for Israel at the 1972 Summer Olympics, at the age of 19, in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany. Swimming in the Women's 100 metre Breaststroke she took 5th in her heat with a time of 1:20.90. Swimming in the Women's 200 metre Breaststroke she took 6th in her heat with a time of 2:53.60. When she competed in the Olympics, she was tall, and weighed . She competed for Israel at the 1970 Asian Games in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

, Thailand. In

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

, Nir won

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

s in the 100 m breaststroke, in 1:20.6, and in the 200 m breaststroke, in 2:54.3.

Munich massacre

Nir was at the

Olympic Village An Olympic Village is a residential complex built or reassigned for the Olympic Games in or nearby the List of Olympic Games host cities, host city for the purpose of accommodating all of the delegations. Olympic Villages are usually located clos ...

during the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics. She had planned to return to Israel soon after swimming her last race, to marry her fiancé. But the Israeli team head asked her to wait, to fly back with an injured fellow Israeli athlete. On September 5, others on the Israeli team were attacked in their dorms by members of the Palestinian terrorist group

Black September Black September (), also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was an armed conflict between Jordan, led by Hussein of Jordan, King Hussein, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by chairman Yasser Arafat. The main phase of the fight ...

. Two athletes fought back and were killed, while nine others were taken hostage. The following day, German authorities took Nir, who had been staying in another building, and the remaining Israeli team members and coaches to the ninth floor of the building. From a window, Nir watched as two helicopters landed on the Olympic Village lawn. The helicopters were supposed to take the terrorists and the Israeli hostages to

Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base ( German: "Fliegerhorst Fürstenfeldbruck" or "Flugplatz Fürstenfeldbruck") is a former German Air Force airfield near the town of Fürstenfeldbruck in Bavaria, near Munich, Germany. Fürstenfeldbruck became famous fir ...

, and from there they were to fly to Cairo. Nir said:

We watched from the ninth floor window as the two buses arrived. Four blindfolded athletes with their hands tied together got off the first bus. They were put on the first helicopter. Then, another five hostages got off the second bus and climbed onto the second helicopter. That was the last image we saw. Although we were on the ninth floor, we could still see it well.

All nine hostages were killed in a failed German rescue operation at the airbase. For a year Nir kept having nightmares that she was "running away from the Arabs," underneath the Olympic Village. "I saw this place, the same location all the time, I couldn't run out of it." I would always be running, and terrorists with masks were chasing me." Since the 1972 Munich Games, Nir has regularly attended commemorations for the killed athletes and met with fellow survivors.

Later career

Nir as of 2012 worked for the Israel Ministry of Sport, and was Director of the Unit for the Advancement of Women in Sports at the Sport Management Division of the Israeli Ministry of Education.

References

External links

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"Excerpt from interview with Shlomit Nir-Toor, Israeli survivor of the 1972 Munich Massacre"
at

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(video) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nir, Shlomit 1952 births Living people Kibbutzniks People from Tiberias Sportspeople from Northern District (Israel) Jewish swimmers Olympic swimmers for Israel Swimmers at the 1972 Summer Olympics Maccabiah Games medalists in swimming Maccabiah Games gold medalists for Israel Israeli female breaststroke swimmers Israeli people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Jewish Israeli sportspeople Swimmers at the 1968 Summer Olympics Competitors at the 1965 Maccabiah Games Asian Games medalists in swimming Asian Games bronze medalists for Israel Swimmers at the 1970 Asian Games Medalists at the 1970 Asian Games