Anat Lelior

Lelior was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, and is Jewish. She has a brother Ido, who is a medic in the Israeli Defense Forces, and a sister. Her sister Noa Lelior, two years younger than she is, is a professional surfer as well, who in 2015 decided to take the family to a surfing competition in France instead of having her bat mitzvah party - this in turn led her older sister Anat to see a bigger stage in surfing. She and her family all live in the same apartment in Tel Aviv, between the Carmel Market and the beach. ==Surfing career==

Early years; Israeli championships Lelior began surfing at the age of 5, when her father would take her out to the Mediterranean Sea at the coast of her hometown Tel Aviv. She won her first Israeli women's title when she was 12 years old, and said: "I fell in love with winning." Lelior's surfing club Galim is owned by Shlomi Eyni and Inbar. 2018–21; World Surf League Europe Pro Junior runner-up Lelior was the 2018 World Surf League (WSL) Europe Pro Junior runner-up. She won the gold medal in the 2018 Caparica Junior Pro in Portugal, the silver medal in the Caparica Pro, and bronze medals in the Junior Pro Espinho in Portugal, Junior Pro Biscarrosse in France, and Junior Pro Sopela in Spain. In 2019, she won the Burton Automotive Pro International Trials in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia at Surfest. Lelior also won the 2019 Deeply Pro Anglet, a WSL Qualifying Series (QS) 1,500 event at Chambre d’Amour in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France, defeating Australian Isabella Nichols in the final, and moving Lelior to third in the European rankings. In 2021 she won a bronze medal in the Estrella Galicia Caparica Surf Fest in Spain. She represented Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics and competed in the Women's shortboard in July 2021, at the Shidashita Beach, located about 40 miles (64 km) outside of Tokyo in Chiba, as she was released from her Israel Defense Forces service to compete in the Games. Surfing with a bad hip injury, which later required surgery, she came in 17th. She said: "It’s an amazing event.... It’s so nice seeing how surfing connects everybody ... on one love that is surfing... Everybody is a person, it doesn’t matter if he has the flag of Iran behind his back... or the Israeli flag. It doesn’t matter because we are all surfers and it breaks all boundaries... I have friends from Fiji, Costa Rica, and Iran." In November 2022, Lelior won the silver medal in the Alaïa Open Winter Cup in Switzerland. She also won the gold medal in women's surfing at the 2022 Maccabiah Games in Israel. In March 2024 Lelior came in 6th in the 2024 World Championships in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. It was the best ranking ever by an Israeli surfer in the World Championships. 2024 Paris Olympics Lelior represented Israel at the 2024 Paris Olympics in surfing in Women's shortboard, in Teahupo'o reef pass, Tahiti, French Polynesia. In Round 2, which was direct elimination, she defeated Spain’s Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri by a total heat score of 11.00 to 2.80. In Round 3 she was defeated by Australia's Tyler Wright, and came in ninth. ==See also==