NCAA Values on Full Display at 2026 Maccabiah Games

“Is there anywhere you’d rather be?” asks Maccabi USA Gymnastics head coach Jesse Kitzen-Abelson, of the three collegiate men's gymnasts representing the United States at the 2026 Maccabiah Games this past July. Following nearly two years of plans being up in the air, there was certainty in this answer across the board: no. 

The Maccabiah Games are held in Israel quadrennially featuring the top Jewish athletes living in the diaspora, and Israeli citizens regardless of religion. 94 years following their formal inception, the Games now stand as testament to the resolute spirit of its athletes past and present, and further strengthens their Jewish identity. Gymnastics has routinely drawn crowds at the Maccabiah, as the event is hosted in the year following the Summer Olympics. Past editions have seen the likes of NCAA legends including Mitch Gaylord (UCLA ‘84) in 1981 and David Sender (Stanford ‘09) in 2009 facing off with the best in the world. 

Two weeks before the opening ceremony scheduled for 2025, delegations were informed that the Games would be cancelled – then postponed by a year – due to regional conflicts and closed air travel in and out of Israel. Delegations around the world had either just received their travel gear, or would see it arrive at their doorsteps mere days into reconciling with the postponement. That uncertainty never dissipated, ultimately changing the initial lineup of five more than once, then whittling it down to three after injuries and withdrawals. For the senior team though, their unwavering love of the sport and support of the Games’ mission inspired them to go and leave 110% on the competition floor. 

Meet the team: three time NCAA team champion and 2024 All-American Arun Chhetri (Stanford ‘26), rising senior and resident-pommels-stalwart Jared Noyman (William & Mary ‘27), and rising sophomore fifth-man Noam Toledano (Springfield ‘29). The three share a unique bond as Maccabiah teammates, but could not have taken more varied paths to the games if they had tried. 

The NCAA Championship podium in 2026 was Arun Chhetri’s planned final competition, and a memorable one at that. He contributed six hit routines across two days to the Cardinal’s run reclaiming the team title, on one of the few teams nationwide that has at least eight gymnasts per event over the season. Needless to say, hanging up the grips at that point would be nothing short of a fairytale ending. Except that wasn’t the case, having received the call from Kitzen-Abelson about potentially replacing a withdrawn athlete. As an alumni of the Maccabiah Games, Chhetri hadn’t had 2025 on his radar – he had committed to a summer job and had eased off training at that point. The freedom in his 2026 schedule presented an opportunity to return to the Maccabiah, have one last shot at suiting up, and to do so alongside his younger brother Kiran this time around.

”Kiran is already going to be there for the juniors, my family's going to be in Israel watching him, and I knew it's going to be a lot more fun if I was an athlete instead [of watching]”, shares the recent graduate. Three short months following his last meet for Stanford, he’d find himself back on the competition floor in Jerusalem’s storied Pais Arena as the team’s veteran.

Noam Toledano was on the cusp of lineups all season at Springfield, dressed and ready at home meets should he need to help the Pride. The 2025 iteration of Maccabi USA’s team had him in the alternate spot too, but this time the games’ postponement saw his rise onto the competing squad. Having not competed since closing out his club career a year prior, he was beyond eager to salute again and get his first taste of team competition. 

Jared Noyman waited two years to compete for Maccabi USA since the initial roster was formed, and had grown into a leader and a graceful gymnast at William & Mary over that time. He was looking forward to being in Israel for the first time, and carrying on the legacy his club gym, Stanford Boys Gymnastics, has at the Games. Each summer he comes home to the Bay Area and trains with the club again, sharing “it's nice to be surrounded by so many, like, great Jewish athletes. I saw Marcus (Kushner) and Evan (Hymanson) go last cycle, and I thought that was very inspiring. I really wanted to do it as well”. Seeing teammates he has close friendships with come back with positive stories from the Games was all the motivation he needed, and would serve as a solid foundation for him to experience it for himself. Noyman was one of many pushing routines well past April, surrounded by club and college gymnasts preparing for the domestic elite season. “We had a nice cohort of people all training routines for the summer, which was pretty motivating. Arun was also training with me, so we got to train together for a few weeks before the games.”

Upon landing in Tel Aviv, the trio hit the ground running and were off to training the same day. The team had early morning training sessions at the Wingate Institute, each being limited to a two hour block. “One of the days when we did our intro squad, we stretched, warmed up our events and competed all of our events in two hours. We literally finished on the dot and had to immediately leave”, laughed Chhetri about the schedule. Training times was only one of a handful of variables that the American gymnasts handled with an open mindset, given how big of an operation a multisport Games can be. Language barriers between delegations and organizers are common at elite assignments, not so much in the NCAA. “Not everyone speaks English or Hebrew, and what one schedule says [today] might change tomorrow. There’s always moving parts. It was made clear to everybody that we needed to be adaptable and ready”, reflects Kitzen-Abelson. Another large variable presented itself in the training equipment; while there was plenty of space at Wingate, the gym only has Spieth floor and rings. Knowing they would be competing on Gymnova, they carved out time for those two events. Toledano mentions casually “one day we went down to the girls gym and practiced on their Gymnova floor”, allowing himself to feel the differences on the softer floor before podium training. 

In atypical fashion for American gymnasts, the trio was in a 5-5-3 format team competition despite being a group of three specialists. Fostering a team-oriented outlook knowing they’d only have opportunity to take individual titles was instilled heavily on all three gymnasts, hardened through collegiate meet experience. Shortly after arriving back at the athletes’ village from podium training, the trio met to discuss the details and logistics of how their team will function come game time. “We had  a team meeting and talked [over] all the logistics. How we're going to chalk up the bars, when we're going to do it, how we're going to do it, how we can make sure it's efficient and ready for everybody” shares Toledano, adding “another big thing we talked about was how our mindset is going to be a team competition. Even though it’s somewhat individual, we want to be there as a team and support each other. That's how we're all going to bring out the best gymnastics”.

As competition day came, the three were set on competing the way they know how: with a team on their shoulders. Their mission was to rack up as many hit sets as they could, and make the most out of each skill. Building off of their post-podium training chats, Chhetri remained locked into the team mindset instilled over years of college gym: “Me, Noam and Jared, we're all from the NCAA, so team competitions are what we know best. There's a lot of good things that come out from competing when you need to compete for other people”. 

Israel’s national team brought NCAA representation to the meet as well, in rising Penn State sophomore Eliran Ioscovich. His national teammate Eyal Indig, though not competing at this meet, is also slated to begin his collegiate career this fall as a Michigan Wolverine. Though small on paper, the match up became a mini overseas all-star meet. Scoring was tight, as noted by both the American and Israeli teams. Chhetri never let the scoring get to him, with his competition goals based on his own performance rather than a game of tenths. The two go along together nicely though, with strong gymnastics leading to strong scores. A demanding 5.3 pommels set, the hardest across the field, is the best example of his meet-day mindset: a not too hot, not to cold routine narrowly earned him the event title ahead of teammate Noyman. That pommels win was one of many in Chhetri’s career, but the first to solidify Maccabiah history – which thinking about more than the skills themselves may have jeopardized. With this event title, Chhetri became the first American gymnast to win the same event as a junior and senior at the Maccabiah Games. 

Noyman had his own big medal moment too, coming at vault. With two vault families up his sleeve, his plan going into the games was to show a Kas and a Yurchenko entry. His Kas is clean and easy, but in the training leading up to the meet his Yurchenko wasn’t feeling as automatic as it used to when he last trained it in club. The solution? Compete the cleanest front handspring vault, and hope the execution and difficulty tradeoff would produce similar scoring to his Yurchenko. He recalls “I just did a big front handspring and let the ground [and the stick] kind of find me”. A 9.800 execution more than filled the difficulty gap, rewarding his adaptability with a silver on the event he hadn’t competed in three years. 

For Noam Toledano, Pais Arena was the perfect setting for his return to competition. He was the sole American to compete on floor, his self described favorite event. He credits the world class arena’s energy to the sheer volume of fans there to watch men’s and rhythmic nationals. Four tenths of upgrades had been added in since his last competitive floor outing at 2025 DP Nationals, now up to a 3.9 set flanked by a double front and double back. The icing on top was the company even more than the routine itself. Family in the stands were there to cheer him on in person for the first time, who were no doubt proud to see their American cousin share the floor podium with superstar Artem Dolgopyat. Toledano beams “a lot of years they get videos and updates from nationals, or any accomplishment I've had, but I've never had the opportunity to compete in front of them in person” – an experience he’ll never take for granted. 

Across the entire Maccabiah Games, one motto was shared across sports and nations. The simple phrase More Than Ever took on a meaning of its own for each delegate, inspiring a mix of grit, pride, and remembrance. Kitzen-Abelson candidly shares “to me it refers to a fight against antisemitism…the whole point is to bring Jewish athletes to Israel to learn about the culture, the people, and the history. It’s showing we’re proud to be Jewish. Training was complemented with touring historical sites, volunteering in local communities, and taking advantage of once in a lifetime opportunities. In a matter of hours, Maccabi USA’s gymnasts scaled Masada and swam in the Dead Sea. The day between podium training and competition was spent farming. Team members took daily walks through Tel Aviv’s world-famous boardwalk. All completely new experiences to link with the standard “away meet”, but par for the course with competing at the Maccabiah Games. For Noyman, an emotional homecoming was also on the itinerary. An hour north of Tel Aviv lies the coastal city of Hadera, where he went to meet family with his American aunt and uncle already in the country to watch the Games. “I got to see where my great grandmother's house was, and there was a statue there dedicated to my great [her], which I thought was very, very cool” he excitedly retells. “I saw the elementary school where my grandma went, and then the synagogue where my dad got bar mitzvahed”. 

The entire team also looks back with heavy hearts on their visit to the grounds outside of Re’im, paying their respects to the hundreds who were massacred and taken hostage from the Nova Festival on the morning of October 7th, 2023. “I'm not a very emotional person in general, but it's impossible to not feel something when you're there” reflects Chhetri. The weekend-long rave had drawn thousands globally to the western Negev desert, and had been billed as a celebration of friendship and love. It now stands as a memorial site for the 378 festival-goers killed that morning. For many Maccabiah delegates, the events of October 7th are impossible to remove from their personal definitions of More Than Ever. 

A less harrowing application of More Than Ever is in the reach the Games have on its fans. For a brief two weeks, every athlete regardless of their sport is an inspiration for local youth. Toledano’s memories of the games are punctuated by running into a group of summer camp children outside the opening ceremony: “it was a bunch of little boys and girls. As soon as you walked in through the doors, they all jumped on you and started showing you pins and asking you to trade. It was the coolest thing for them to have other countries there with pins that they've never seen”. 

Just as the three senior men had contrasting pathways en route to the Maccabiah, their plans will diverge again with the new academic year. Toledano will be bringing his recent international experience back to Springfield, where he’ll be ready to break into the top four and see competition time in his sophomore campaign. Noyman is staring down the start of his senior year representing the Tribe, where he has emerged as a powerful specialist as well as one of the university’s top student-athletes in the classroom. Recent grad Chhetri is done with the sport, but remains at Stanford to pursue a masters degree. He’ll be one of few supporting his alma mater and its Bay Area rival, as Kiran begins his NCAA career at Cal. Though they’ll be spread coast to coast again this fall, the team will definitely be using the lessons they learned at the Games both in and out of the gym: be proud of what you do, who you are, and who you represent.

Three of the five junior squad members used these past Maccabiah Games as a transitional meet from their club years into team-oriented NCAA meets. Joining Kiran Chhetri at Cal is fellow Maccabi USA junior competitor Yotam Gabay, fresh off the heels of a busy summer balancing the Games with his rise into the American senior elite meet season. Tyler Shub is set to join Simpson, and will be the first Storm gymnast in program history with connection to the Maccabiah. 

Will we see any of them return to the games in 2029? Three years of collegiate gymnastics stand in the way of that information. With the growth of the sport and the fanfare of a home soil Olympics coming soon, these three years are sure to bring upgrades, storylines, and a newly inspired batch of top tier talent eager to take on the Maccabiah Games. 

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Videos of Maccabi USA’s routines can be found on their YouTube channel, with scoring available via AcroCompanion.