Nationality Australia Country Australia Club Maccabi TTC | Height 179 cm (5 ft 10 in) Highest world ranking 24th | |
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Barak Mizrachi (born 22 March 1988) is an Australian Paralympic table tennis player. After playing competitive table tennis for the first time in 2001, he went on to make his international debut in 2003 at the Maccabiah Games. He has since represented Australia at the Maccabiah Games in 2005, 2007 and 2009, before being selected for the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
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Personal
Mizrachi was born on the 22 March 1988 in Carnegie, Victoria. He was born with cerebral palsy right hemiplegia which affects the right side of his body. Outside of table tennis Mizrachi works as a gas engineer.
Table tennis
Mizrachi is a class 8 table tennis player meaning that he competes whilst standing. As a child he was introduced to table tennis by his father. He played the sport throughout high school before getting involved with the Maccabi Club. After playing his first competitive game in 2001, he made his debut in 2003, whilst competing at the Maccabiah Games (a multi sport tournament for Jewish competitors from around the world) an experience he recalls as a thrill making him never want to stop playing for Australia. However, it was not until 2015 that he took his first firm steps towards the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, when he defeated the favourite on his way to winning at the Oceania Para-Table Tennis Championships. It was also in this tournament that he was awarded the best and fairest award. Barak also made history in 2015 when he became the first Australian with a disability to be selected in the Australian team to compete at the Summer Universiade in Russia. In 2016, he was selected for the 2016 Summer Paralympics.
At the 2016 Rio Paralympics, he lost both matches in the Men's Singles Class 8 and failed to advance.