The official closing show of the Maccabiah Games on Tuesday night, July 30, at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, was a huge success with athletes and spectators alike. Thousands of athletes rocked to the tunes of Israeli bands and singers including Balkan Beat Box, The Young Professionals, Orphaned Land, Offer Nissim, Riff Cohen, and Infected Mushroom.
Many of the overseas athletes, from more than 70 countries, were familiar with the Israeli songs, and so athletes from across Europe, Canada and the U.S. could be seen singing along.
“This is awesome,” said one Dutch athlete to another when Infected Mushrooms’ Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani, who are based in Los Angeles, were caming on to perform their energetic trance-like beats to a clearly infected audience.
Israel lead the way with the final gold medal count, followed by the United States, Hungary, Canada, Azerbijan and South Africa. Altogether, some 9,000 competitors from across the world participated in the games this year.
Here are the top medal winners in the 2013 games:
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Israel | 153 | 135 | 123 | 411 |
| 2 | United States | 77 | 60 | 59 | 196 |
| 3 | Hungary | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 4 | Canada | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9 |
| 5 | Azerbaijan | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| 6 | South Africa | 1 | 3 | 8 | 12 |
| 7 | Australia | 1 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| 8 | Russia | 1 | 0 | 6 | 7 |
| 9 | Germany | 1 | 0 | 4 | 5 |
| 7 | Georgia | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| 8 | Australia | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 9 | Netherlands | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 10 | Cuba | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| 11 | Great Britain | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Ukraine | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Brazil | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Source: Wikipedia