Avishag Semberg

Avishag Semberg (or Abishag Samberg, ; born ) is an Israeli Olympic taekwondo athlete. She is an Olympic bronze medalist for Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics in the women's 49 kg competition. She won Israel's all-time tenth Olympic medal, and is the youngest Israeli to receive an Olympic medal, at the age of 19. Semberg represented Israel at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the women's taekwondo -49 kg category. Saudi athlete Dunya Abutaleb defeated Semberg in the first round.

Early life Semberg was born and raised in Gedera, Israel, to Israeli parents Oren Sermberg and Nili Cohen-Semberg, and is Jewish. Her father is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, whereas her mother is of both Sephardi Jewish and Mizrahi Jewish (Moroccan-Jewish) descent. Her father is a lawyer, and her mother works at a health service organization. She has two younger sisters. At 16 years of age she moved to a training facility in Ramla, Israel.

Semberg was conscripted to the IDF in 2020, serving as a lieutenant in the protection and engineering department of the Home Front Command, where she among other things performed kitchen and guard duty, and was also designated an "Outstanding Sportswoman" and allowed time off to train and compete. She had an honorable discharge in November 2021 after completing her military enlistment. Her best friend is Assaf Yassur, an amputee world champion taekwondo fighter.

At 9 years of age she trained four times a week.

In November 2016 Semberg won a bronze medal at the youth World Taekwondo Championships in Burnaby, Canada, in the 46 kg weight class. Tunisian authorities said they would only allow the Israelis to compete if their uniforms did not feature any Israeli national symbol or insignia, and that the Israeli anthem would not be played for any Israeli winners. With Wongpattanakit progressing to the final, Semberg got to compete in the repechage, where she beat 8th-seeded Trương Thị Kim Tuyền from Vietnam 22-1 to qualify for the bronze medal match against Turkey's 2010 and 2018 European Champion Rukiye Yıldırım, whom Semberg beat, 27–22, earning Israel's first Olympic medal (all-time, tenth) in the 2020 Summer games, and first in taekwondo. Semberg was also the youngest Israeli to win an Olympic medal, at age 19.

Upon returning to her hometown she spoke at an event in her honor, saying: "I want to send a message to young girls and boys who are training or are thinking of training that anything is possible. Sometimes I doubted myself and said, ‘I’m just a girl from Gedera, can I really be at the top?’ So yes, you can be at the top, you just need to dream big and dream of it every day."

2021–present; European Championships silver medal Later in 2021 she won gold medals in the 2021 Montenegro Open in Podgorica, and in the Bosnia Herzegovina Open in Sarajevo, in the 53 kg weight class. She said: “My friend Kim was murdered at the Nova party. Omer, who for years sat next to me in class, was kidnapped in Gaza. It’s hard for me to think about it. For weeks I sat at home and asked myself, ‘What’s relevant now?’ On October 7, we were at a competition in China, sitting in the dining room in shock, and saw the Jordanian team walking past and laughing. This is inhumane behaviour. The world does not understand what is happening in Israel.” That year she also won the Austrian Open in Innsbruck, in the 53 kg weight class.

Personal life Semberg is in a relationship with Israeli taekwondo athlete Nimrod Kravitzky since 2019. They married in 2025.