The next star of Israeli swimming: "I am aiming as high as possible"
Tomer Shuster, who gave up on college for sports and overcame a serious injury before the World Championships, has become a breakout star at the European Championships. The swimmer shares how a fateful competition saved his career and how the events of October 7 shaped his path.
Flexing muscles, sticking out his tongue, spreading smiles. It was impossible to miss Tomer Shuster at the European Swimming Championships that concluded in Paris. He maintained the absolute concentration required for a race, but also knew how to spice it up with a joy of life that made him stand out. His professional performance did not suffer: Shuster shattered two Israeli records that had stood for nearly a decade, in the 50 and 100m backstroke, and ranked fifth in the final of his first race. In every respect, he was the star of the team.
"I am a happy, joyful person," he explains his poses for the cameras. "At first I smile, but the camera doesn't go down, so you change your face, I do something funny." In a special interview from Paris, just before returning to Israel, he reflects on the championship, the competition that brought him back from retirement, and how October 7 influenced his career.
"All my life I gave everything"
22-year-old Shuster is enjoying a late bloom. He did not pass through any youth national teams as a young swimmer from Moshav Talmei Yafe in the Gaza envelope. Now he is bursting into the consciousness of sports fans with 24.36 seconds in the 50m backstroke and 53.39 seconds in the 100m.
"I always strive to reach the highest, and where do you do that? On the international stages," says Shuster. "That's where the highest level is. I asked the national team coach Leonid Kaufman what distinguishes 16th place from the final. He answered that it is the execution of a complex task. I thought about it as a challenge. In the water I felt exhausted, my body hurt after every weight training session. All my life I gave everything, even in the records."
Everything pales in comparison to the moment you lift your head and see that you broke a national record. And then another one. "National team manager Yaakov Toumarkin was waiting for someone to break his record in the 100, and when it happened he gave me a hug and a high-five. The picture of the whole team cheering for me in the 50 backstroke semi-final will not leave my head, it warmed the heart."
The last chance
Three years ago, Shuster was training in the Negev swimmers group under the guidance of Amir "Fish" Cohen, near Sderot. He didn't stand out, but decided to continue training even though he had mentally prepared himself for the fact that this chapter was ending. "I was already in the mindset that that's it," he recalls. "I arrived at a competition at the Wingate Institute knowing that I was coming for the last heat. I came to enjoy, I was happy, I sang. I jumped into the water and touched the wall after 57.16 seconds in the 100 backstroke. That result granted me the status of an outstanding athlete in the army."
"Until that moment I felt that I was at the end of my career, because I wasn't at the top. Also all the friends around me were in significant military service. It was a dilemma for an 18-year-old kid who has no idea except for swimming. I believe in God, believe that he directed me to this from the moment I was born."
Swimming despite everything
"On October 7, the terrorists didn't reach us, thank God, we are far from the border," describes Shuster. "We weren't evacuated, but the Sha'ar HaNegev area took a hard hit. The coach Fish lives in Kibbutz Mefalsim, which terrorists did enter. There was a lot of shock and uncertainty at the beginning."
How do you return to swimming? "My father, Alon, didn't like that things were stuck. He looked for a good club for me. Maccabi Rishon LeZion accepted me with open arms. We found an apartment close to the pool so that swimming would become the purpose of life. This move did wonders for me, developed me as a person. I moved to live alone and became independent."
Last May, he decided to jump off a cliff at Palmachim beach: "There was a huge rock there and I landed on it," he recalls. "All the fingers turned backwards. I came out bleeding, on one leg. In the hospital it was discovered that there was a fracture in the metatarsal bone and a dislocation of three fingers. For three months I wasn't supposed to step on the leg. I told the doctor: 'In three months I am supposed to be on the springboard in Singapore'. I worked very focused, I swam only with my hands. I didn't give up."
Regarding the World Championships in Budapest and the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, Shuster remains cautious: "I am aiming there, but there is still time. Let's not talk about it. Let's not jinx it."
