Nations participating 37 Opening city Ramat Gan | Athletes participating 3700 Main venue National Stadium | |
Debuting countries Gibraltar
Guam
Panama
U.S. Virgin Islands
Zaire | ||
The 1985 12th Maccabiah Games brought over 4,000 athletes to Israel from 37 nations to compete in 28 sports.
Twenty years after his first appearance in the Maccabiah, Olympic Champion Mark Spitz returned to Israel to carry the Opening Ceremony’s Torch into Ramat Gan Stadium. He was accompanied by Shirli Shapiro, Anok Spitzer, and Shlomit Romano, children of three of the Israelis slain at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Seven men's and 14 women's records were broken in swimming, with the U.S. team winning all but three of the gold medals in this category. Twelve new men's records and 7 new women's records were broken in track and field.
The U.S. won 109 gold medals, 90 silver medals, and 74 bronze medals, slightly fewer than half of the medals won by all other countries combined.
Mark Berger, who had won a silver medal at the Olympics the year prior, won a gold medal in judo.
A Junior Maccabiah was held for the first time.
Participating Communities
The number in parentheses indicates the number of participants that community contributed.