Israeli athletes gear up for Beijing Olympic Games

JERUSALEM, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Top Israeli athletes are making their final preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing which is just around the corner, local daily The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday.

The Olympic Committee of Israel (OCI) has made "an optimal plan" for each of Israel's sportsmen and sportswomen, said Gilad Lustig, director of Israel's Elite Sport Department, a body set up in 1984 to oversee the selection of athletes for the Olympics.

The final 100 days could prove crucial to the athletes' chances, he said, adding that the Olympic team is "very pleased with the preparations which were almost optimal."

Lustig said he is also pleased to have already met one of the key goals the OCI set after the 2004 Athens Games, which is organizing a delegation of 38 to 40 sportsmen and sportswomen.

"When we toughened the criteria for these Olympics, some people said that we won't even have 20 athletes in China," he recalled, while explaining that higher standards mean that "all the athletes that will be in the Olympics will fight for a place in the final of their respected events."

"I hope we claim between one or two medals and reach between six and eight finals," he said, adding that "we must claim a medal in the sailing," while the second might come from tennis or gymnastics.

Meanwhile, he noted that it is getting "tougher" to win a medal as the number of delegations which claimed medals dropped from 80 in the 2000 Sydney Olympics to 75 in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

His expectations mirrored those of Efraim Zinger, secretary general of the Olympic Committee of Israel, who vowed "to keep our place among the very elite club of nations which win Olympic medals."

"It may look trivial now, but it isn't. It just gets harder and harder, and in Beijing it's going to be even tougher," said Zinger, who will be the chief of Israeli Olympic mission to China. " Nevertheless, we're not changing our goals and we definitely expect to claim between one or two medals."