The 21st edition of the Maccabiah Games, a global multi-sport event for Jewish athletes held every four years, has been postponed until 2022.
The event was originally scheduled to take place in Israel in June 2021, but organizers have postponed it for a year due to the global coronavirus outbreak. While this will mean a 5-year gap since the last edition in 2017, it will keep the Games in the post-Summer-Olympic year after the Tokyo Games were rescheduled to July, 2021.
The new dates for the Maccabiah are July 12-26, 2022. That means the event will miss the 2022 Commonwealth Games, another large multi-sport international event, by one day: the Commonwealth Games are scheduled to run from July 27th through August 7th in Birmingham, England.
The World Maccabiah Games were first held in 1932, and in 1961 were designated by the IOC as a “Regional Sports Event.” It is the 3rd-largest sporting event in the world and at the last edition in 2017 had around 8,500 participants from 70 countries. The event includes Open, Juniors, Masters, and Disabled divisions of competition.
While the Maccabiah Games doesn’t usually have the same depth of athletes as events like the Commonwealth Games or Olympics, there are frequently top-level athletes that participate. For example, in 2017, Anthony Ervin swam for the Americans, while Olympic gold medalists Lenny Krayzelburg and Jason Lezak participated as event ambassadors and swam two exhibition relays.
Ervin won gold medals in the 50 free (22.05), 100 free (49.76), and as part of the American 400 medley relay.
In 2017, the hosts Israel led the medals table with 173 gold and 470 total medals. The United States (50 gold, 164 total medals) finished 2nd, with Canada (10 gold, 23 total medals) placing 3rd.
Other major international multi-sport events that have been postponed from 2021 until 2022 include the Mediterranean Games.