Olympus, had to be the anathema of
monotheistic Judaism.
But the ideological barriers gradu-
ally gave way to a desire for repre-
sentation on any global stage, and
Jewish athleticism became a serious
concern when in 1901 — five years
after six Jewish athletes combined to
win 13 medals in Athens at the first
modern Olympics — Max Nordau
exhorted the Fifth Zionist Congress
toward "muscular Judaism." This
call led to the birth of the Maccabi
movement.
A century later, unique individuals
carry the torch. Here's a look at some
of them.

Within four years of her introduc-
tion to the event, Zeiger was voted
1997 Amateur of the Year by USA
Triathlon. She turned pro in 1998.
And earlier this year, at the
Olympic Trials in Irving, Texas, she
finished second in a field of 28 to
secure an Olympic berth.
After covering the course — 0.9-
mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride, 6.2-
mile run — in 2 hours, 6 minutes,
17 seconds and eight puffs of
Ventolin from her inhaler, Zeiger
called the realization of her
Olympic dream "probably the most
exciting thing that's ever happened
to me."

near-masochistic zeal.
"While everybody else is sleeping,
I'm out there training," she says. "I
usually do two workouts a day, one in
the morning and one in the after-
noon. Could be for one hour, could
be for six hours. And some days, I rest
and do nothing at all."
That's hard to believe of someone
who a few years ago won her age
group at the world's most grueling
event, the Hawaii Ironman World
Championships. All that entailed was
a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile
bike ride and a bona fide 26.2-mile
marathon. Zeiger finished in 10
hours, 17 minutes.

friends from high school and college
are buying homes and getting stock
options.'"
But, at least for the Olympics, she
is still upwardly mobile only when
pedaling her road bike up a hill.
The worst fears of her father have
been realized. Marvin Freedman, a
math professor at Boston University,
recently told her, "I was afraid of hav-
ing a boy because I didn't know any
sports. Then I got you."
She is bursting with Jewish pride.
"I'm pleased to call myself a Jewish
Olympian. Because I believe in the
philosophy, and maybe also because
it's a minority religion; American cul-

Jeff Agoos — Soccer
Born in Switzerland and a resident of Dallas, Jeff,
at 32, has been a member of the national team
since 1985. He has three Major League Soccer
championship rings as a member of D.C. United.

Deena Drossin — Track & Field: 10,000
A 27-year-old cross-country standout from
Alamosa, Colo., Drossin is still going strong nine
years after first making her mark as a freshman at
the University of Arkansas.

Lenny Krayzelbiut — Swimming: 100, 200 back-
stroke
The world-record holder in both backstroke
events, the Californian came to the U.S. from his
native Soviet Union at 13.

Cliff Bayer — Fencing

Nicole Freedman — Cycling

Alyssa Beckerman — Gymnastics (alternate)
The 19-year-old from Middletown, N.J. was cho-
sen as one of two alternates on the American gym-
nastics team. After Sydney, she starts classes as a
freshman at UCLA.

Scott Goldblatt — Swimming: 200 freestyle, 800
freestyle relay
The senior-to-be at the University of Texas made
his first Olympic team by finishing second behind
world-record holder Josh Davis in the 200-meter
freestyle.

Jason Lezak — Swimming: 400 freestyle relay
The 24-year-old from Irvine, Calif, scored a major
upset at the Olympic Trials with an explosive sec-
ond lap in the 100-meter freestyle to finish fourth
and land a berth on the relay team.

Tamir Bloom — Fencing

Andy Bloom — Track & Field: shot put
A 27-year-old from Stamford, Conn., Andy is a
two-time national indoor shot-put champion.
After barely missing out on Atlanta '96 (finishing
fourth at the Olympic Trials), he qualified for
Sydney with a toss of 70 feet, 10.75 inches. He is
6-foot-1, 275 pounds.

There isn't a more determined ath-
lete in Australia than Joanne Zeiger,
who kept pounding on the door until
it fell down.
The former All-Ivy League swim-
mer for Brown University qualified for
the Olympic swimming trials in both
1988 and 1992, but that's as far as she
got. But while at the 1992 trials,
Joanne accepted a teammate's chal-
lenge to race to the pool.
A year later, when a shoulder
injury effectively ended her compet-
itive swimming career, the perpetu-
al-motion Zeiger needed another
means to stay in shape and recalled
the joy of running. So her new
competitive outlet became
triathlons, the most rigorous test of
physical and mental endurance.

Margo Goldstein-Engle — Equestrian
One of the Olympics' grand dames, making her
Olympic debut at 42, Margo is the leading money
winner in U.S. show jumping history and a six-time
American Grand Prix Association Rider of the Year.

Sara Whalen — Soccer
A 24-year-old defender born in Natick, Mass., and
now living in Greenlawn, N.Y, Sara was a member
of the 1999 Women's World Cup championship
team. She was a three-time All-American at the
University of Connecticut.

Joanna Zeiger — Triathlon

Adam Goucher — Track & Field: 5,000
Adam is a 25-year-old former NCAA (University
of Colorado) cross-country champ.

Zeiger has yet to finish out of the
top three in any race this season —
including her last pre-Olympic tune-
up, Aug. 28 in Chicago, where she
won the U.S. Pro Women's national
title.
Through it all, the 5-foot-5, 115-
pound Zeiger has managed to accom-
modate the demands of both acade-
mics and world-class athletics. A 1992
graduate of Brown with a B.A. in psy-
chology, Zeiger earned her master's in
genetic counseling from Northwestern
University in 1995. She is currently a
Ph.D. candidate in genetic epidemiol-
ogy at Baltimore's John Hopkins
University, where she also works as a
research assistant.
Before and after her "day" responsi-
bilities, she attacks her workouts with

Compared to that, the Olympic
triathlon will be a Shabbat walk in the
park.

Nicole Freedman has a sense that
most people must think she is a few
treads shy of a full set of tires. And
they're not talking about the stripped
1977 Ford Econoline van which for
years was her residence.
Not many 28-year-olds educated at
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Stanford University
are happy just spinning their wheels.
Or, as she says of Stanford, "It takes
people who are on these seemingly
successful career paths and turns them
into their parents' worst nightmares."
About a year ago, "I said to myself,
`I'm 27 and living in a van, and my

ture is so Christian-based, but if you're
Jewish or Muslim — you are still
that."
Yet, she did not become a bat
mitzvah, by her own choice. "I feel
Jewish, and I relate to the Jewish
culture, but I don't agree with all
the religious aspects." That, too,
ruffled Dad. "He would definitely
say, 'Yeah, we had a religious house-
hold,'" Nicole says, "but, in truth,
not extremely so."
Nicole played on MIT's basketball
team, then switched coasts and tracks
to become a 5-minute miler on
Stanford's track team. As a senior in
Palo Alto, she began cross-training on
a borrowed bicycle — and found a
new passion.
"I had been running for nine years

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