Tal Flicker

Tal Flicker (; born 28 May 1992) is an Israeli retired He competed in the under 66 kg weight category, and won bronze medals in the 2017 World Championships and the 2018 European Championships as well as a silver medal in the 2020 European Championships. Flicker won the 2017 Baku Grand Slam, the 2017 Cancún Grand Prix and the 2017 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam. In August 2017 he was ranked # 1 in the world in the 66 kg division. He has won Israeli championships in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015.

On 1 June 2013, Flicker won his first international contest as a senior after defeating Ivan Spirin from Russia in the final of the European Open Bucharest. On 12 September, he won a bronze medal in 2014 Zagreb Grand Prix, his first medal in a Grand Prix. In 2015 he won the European Open in Rome, and won bronze at the 2015 Jeju Grand Prix, South Korea. He then won bronze at the 2016 Zagreb Grand Prix.

2017-present On 10 March, Flicker won the gold medal at the 2017 Baku Grand Slam, and won bronze at the 2017 Düsseldorf Grand Prix.

On 29 August, Flicker won a bronze medal at the 2017 World Championships in men's 66 kg in Budapest, Hungary. He followed in the footsteps of fellow Israeli Golan Pollack, who won a World Championships bronze medal in the U66 category as well, two years prior. The International Judo Federation (IJF) had sent a letter to the President of the United Arab Emirates Judo Federation that instructed: "all delegations, including the Israeli delegation, shall be treated absolutely equally in all aspects, without any exception," and that the IJF statutes "clearly provide that the IJF shall not discriminate on the ground of race, religion, gender or political opinion."

However, despite Ficker's win, and against the explicit instructions of the International Judo Federation, as they had done in the same event two years prior, tournament organizers in Abu Dhabi refused to fly the Israeli flag or play the Israeli national anthem, despite the fact that it is customary to play the medalist's national anthem. In addition, instead of having "ISR" by his name on the scoreboard and on his back to denote that he was competing for Israel, at the insistence of the organizers "IJF" (for the International Judo Federation) was substituted. Oren Smadja said, after Flicker's victory: "I am very happy to be here - with a flag, without a flag ... to prove to everyone that it is impossible to stop the State of Israel."

Titles Source: Year Tournament Place Ref. 2014 Grand Prix Zagreb 2019 Grand Prix Tbilisi 2020 Grand Prix Tel Aviv European Championships Grand Slam Budapest