Alon Mandel

Alon Mandel (Hebrew: אלון מנדל‎; born 23 August 1988 in the United States) is an Israeli swimmer who represented Israel at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Mandel is the national record holder (2014) in 50 and 100 meter butterfly. Mandel won the 100 meter butterfly at the 2009 Maccabiah Games and still holds the record in that event.

Biography

Mandel was born in the United States and was raised in Netanya. He has a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, a master's degree in Environmental Engineering from Tel Aviv University, and another master's degree in political science from Tel Aviv University as well.

Mandel started swimming at age 6 and began training at the club "Hapoel Emek Hefer". Initially he raced in backstroke, and set records for youth in both the 50 and the 100 meter backstroke. In 2006, at age 18, Alon has been recognized as an athlete prodigy, and postponed his mandatory army service in order to study chemical engineering at the University of Michigan in parallel to training with the varsity men's swim team at the University of Michigan, along with Michael Phelps and his coach Bob Bowman. During his training in Michigan, Alon switched his primary stroke from backstroke to butterfly, although he kept competing in backstroke for the University of Michigan. During his tenure at the University of Michigan, Mandel has won 4 NCAA All-American accolades, 5 Big-10 titles and 3 NCAA Honorable Mention All-American accolades.