Olympic Committee Honors Slain Israeli Athletes

JERUSALEM, Israel – Forty-seven Israeli athletes will compete in 17 different events in the summer Olympic Games in Rio, just getting underway this weekend.

On Wednesday, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach took time to honor the memories of the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches slain by Palestinian terrorists in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

As he read out the names of each victim, and the German police officer who was also killed, Bach said the massacre wasn't just an attack against fellow Olympians, it was also "an assault on the values that the Olympic Village stands for."

The memorial ceremony was in itself a victory for Israel, the Jewish athletes and their families, who have lobbied the committee for years to honor the victims.

On the 40th anniversary of the massacre at the 2012 games in London, the committee refused to hold even a moment of silence in their memory. a decision that pleased the Palestinian Authority at the time.

Four years later, Bach not only led participants in a moment of silence, he welcomed the widows of two victims, Ankie Spitzer, wife of fencing coach Andre Spitzer, and Ilana Romano, wife of weightlifter Yossef Romano.

"We waited for this for 44 years, to have this remembrance and recognition of our loved ones who were killed so brutally in Munich. We wanted them to be really accepted as members of the Olympic family," Spitzer said at Wednesday's ceremony.

"Now that President Bach had a minute of silence in the Olympic village, calling out the names of our loved ones, this is closure for us," she continued. "I cannot explain how emotional I am, how much this means to us."

Romano called it "a moment in history."

"I never believed it's going to come after 44 years," she said. "This is a moment of history."

During the attack 44 years ago, the terrorists demanded the release of 234 Arab prisoners serving time in Israeli jails, as well as members of the Red Army Faction incarcerated in Germany.

In the German rescue attempt, police killed five of the terrorists. Three were captured and released five years later.