Sagi Muki

Muki was born and raised in Netanya, Israel, to a family of Mizrahi Jewish (Yemenite-Jewish) descent.[9][10][11][12][13] His parents are Rahamim and Orit Muki. At the age of eight, he chose to focus on judo, which he had been practicing for four years, despite excelling in football for a Netanya junior soccer team.[11][14][15] He attended Tchernichovsky High School in Netanya.[1] As of June 2015 he still resided with his parents, for reasons of convenience and proximity to the Wingate Institute sports training facility.[15] He served in the Israel Defense Forces as a Sergeant in the Vehicle Division at the Sde Dov airbase.[16]

For 19 years, since the age of four, Muki has been coached by Israeli judoka Oren Smadja, who won the Olympic bronze medal in the under 71 kilograms (157 lb) weight category in judo at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[12][13][15][17] Smadja is also the national team coach, and Muki views Smadja as a fatherly figure.[15][18] His club is Maccabi Netanya, and he met future Israeli judoka world champion Yarden Gerbi there when he was four years old.[11][13] He noted in 2013: "It's important to me to serve the State as an athlete. This year, I got to play the national anthem in Georgia, Estonia, and Belarus, and last year in Germany. Every time the audience stands for the anthem, it's fun and brings me great pride".[19]

In April 2011 he came in fifth in the World U-20 Junior Championships in the under 73-kilogram (161-pound) category, and in August 2011 Muki won the European Cup U20 in Berlin in the under 73 kg category.[20][21] In September 2011, he came in third in the European U20 Junior Championships in Lommel, Belgium, in the under 73 kg category.[20][21] In December 2012, he won the Israeli Championship in the under 81 kilograms (179 lb) category in Ra'anana, Israel.[20][22]

Muki won a gold medal at the European Open World Judo Championship in February 2013 in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the under 73 kg category.[23] He also won gold medals at the European Open Tallinn in June 2013, and the European Open Minsk in October 2013 in the under 73 weight class.[20] He won the Israeli Championship in the under 81 kg category in Ra'anana, Israel in December 2013.[20]

In May 2014, Muki won the Baku Grand Slam in Azerbaijan in the under 73 kg category.[6][24] In June 2014, he won another International Judo Federation World Tour gold medal, at the Havana Grand Prix in the under 73 kg category.[7][25][26] In October 2014, he was ranked number three in the world in his weight class, and in May 2015 he had moved up to number two in the world.[27][28]

Source:[44][20]

Year	Tournament	Place	Weight class	Ref.
2014	Grand Prix Düsseldorf		-73 kg	[45]
	Grand Slam Baku			[6]
	Grand Prix Havana			[7]
	Grand Prix Astana			[46]
	Grand Prix Jeju			[47]
2015	Grand Prix Düsseldorf			[48]
	Grand Prix Zagreb			[49]
	European Games			[4]
	Grand Slam Paris			[33]
	Grand Slam Abu Dhabi			[50]
2016	Grand Slam Paris			[51]
2017	Grand Prix Tashkent		-81 kg	[38]
2018	European Championships			[5]
	Grand Prix Budapest			[52]
	Grand Slam Abu Dhabi			[53]
2019	Grand Prix Tel Aviv			[54]
	Grand Slam Paris			[55]
	Grand Slam Ekaterinburg			[56]
	Grand Slam Baku			[57]
	World Championships			[3]
	World Masters			[58]
2021	World Masters			[42]

• List of select Jewish judokas
• Sport in Israel
• Israel Judo Association

• Sagi Muki at the International Judo Federation
• Sagi Muki at JudoInside.com
• Sagi Muki on Facebook
• Sagi Muki at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• The-sports.org bio
• "Inside Video: Sagi Muki" (video), JudoInside, 4 January 2015
• "Sagi Muki wins the Men's −73kg final | Judo | Baku 2015 European Games" (video), Baku 2015 European Games, 26 June 2015