Just one week before he celebrated his bar mitzvah, Asaf Yasur’s life took a tragic turn. On his way to a social gathering in Aloney HaBashan, where he grew up, he suddenly noticed a ball lying in the village’s electrical room. Yasur, a passionate sports enthusiast, jumped in to retrieve the ball, but accidentally stumbled on one of the high-voltage electrical cables. He miraculously survived the electric shock and was airlifted for urgent medical treatment at Tel HaShomer Hospital, where doctors were forced to amputate both his arms.
In the next eight months, he underwent no less than 15 surgeries and a long, difficult, and challenging rehabilitation period — during which he was exposed to the sport that would soon become the second major turning point in his life – Taekwondo.
Within a short time, Israel’s Taekwondo national team coach, Yehiam Sharabi, identifies the enormous potential in the child, in his impressive motivation and rare athletic abilities – and takes him under his wing. Just two years later, Yasur was called up to the Israeli national team. Not much time passes and the outstanding athlete wins three silver medals in various international Paralympic competitions. In 2021, Yasur recorded an unthinkable achievement at the Israeli Championship that testifies to his special character, when he insisted on competing against athletes without any disabilities. His participation was approved and he defeated some of the best athletes in the field and won a bronze medal.
“For the past eight years, I’ve been a professional athlete, training twice a day, five days a week, with the near goal being the Paris Olympics”, he says. Two and a half years ago, he won the World Championship for the first time and 4 gold medals in various Grand Prix competitions, and just four months ago he retained his World Champion title. This, after winning the gold medal again at the World Championship held in Mexico – which earned him the ticket to participate in the Paris Olympics, where he is ranked first in the world.
“I’m very optimistic by nature”, he testifies about himself. “I’ve been doing very well in the last two years. Twice world champion; I also won Grand competitions; European championship; and now I’m coming to competitions with the burden of proof on me. I don’t want to say as a favorite, but still an athlete who comes from the first place has the burden of proof on him, unlike the first championship I came to as an underdog. The expectations are different – first of all mine from myself”, he declairs.
Between sports competitions and strenuous training, Yasur also finds time to give lectures to students in schools, organizations, and various businesses. “In all the lectures I convey the message that everything is possible. It goes through my life story. Not as preaching and not as mentoring or coaching, ‘do this or that and everything will work’. Everyone goes through their own story, with their difficulties and challenges. I come with my story and through the tough challenges in life that I went through to get to where I got. I try to bring my moments of difficulty and how I did and what I did to overcome them. How in the last nine years my life has changed from one extreme to the other. How from the difficult place I was in, I reached a place where I can say today with satisfaction – is full of all good. And I really hope that my story might make a change and help whoever needs it”.
