Sportsעמיצור שפירא

Amitzur Shapira

Amitzur Shapira was an Israeli sprinter and athletics coach who was killed in the Munich massacre while serving as head coach of Israel's track and field team at the 1972 Olympics.

1932 to 1972Coaching Israeli track and fieldVictim of the Munich massacreCoaching Esther Shachamarov

Born: 9 July 1932, Tel Aviv
Died: 6 September 1972, Fürstenfeldbruck
Occupation: coach, athletics competitor, track and field coach, Olympic competitor

Amitzur Shapira was born in 1932 in Tel Aviv

Amitzur Shapira was born in Tel Aviv in 1932 and studied at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium. In the 1950s he competed as a sprinter.

In 1952 he qualified as a physical education teacher. He taught in Ramat Gan and later at the Mikveh Israel agricultural school. At the Wingate Institute he taught athletics and handball and coordinated athletics at the coaches school, where he trained many coaches.

He coached athletics at Hapoel Tel Aviv and accompanied Israeli national teams abroad, including the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. His athletes included Esther Shachamarov, whom he began coaching at age 14. She won a gold medal at the 1970 Asian Championships in Bangkok.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics he was taken hostage with other members of the Israeli team by members of the Black September organization. He was killed at Fürstenfeldbruck airbase during a failed rescue attempt. He was buried in Kiryat Shaul Cemetery and left a wife, Shoshana, and 4 children.

In 1974 a guidebook on teaching school athletics, based on his writings, was published. The Wingate academic college holds an annual race in his memory. The artist Shahak Shapira is his grandson.