Sagi Muki

Sagi Muki

Muki (in blue) in the gold medal final of the 2015 European Games
Personal information
Native name	שגיא מוקי
Full name	Sagi Aharon Muki
Nickname(s)	Muki
Nationality	Israeli
Ethnicity	Jewish
Born	(1992-05-17) 17 May 1992 (age 24) Netanya, Israel
Years active	19
Height	179 cm (5 ft 10 in)
Weight	73 kg (161 lb)
Sport
Sport	Judo
Rank	1st degree black belt in Judo
Event(s)	under 73 kg (161 pounds)
Club	Maccabi Netanya
Coached by	Oren Smadja
Achievements and titles
Highest world ranking	2
Medal record Judo Representing  Israel European Games 2015 Baku –73 kg
Updated on 27 June 2015.

Sagi Aharon Muki (also "Moki"; Hebrew: שגיא מוקי‎‎; born 17 May 1992) is an Israeli lightweight judoka, and the reigning European champion in his weight class.

In August 2011 Muki won the European Cup U20 in Berlin in the under 73 kilogram (161-pound) category. He won gold medals in February 2013 at the European Open World Judo Championship in Tbilisi, Georgia, in June 2013 at the European Open Tallinn, and in October 2013 at the European Open Minsk, in the under 73 weight class. In May 2014, he won the Baku Grand Slam in Azerbaijan in the under 73 kg category, and the following month he won another International Judo Federation World Tour gold medal, this time at the Havana Grand Prix in the under 73 kg category.

Muki is a two-time Israeli judo champion. In June 2015, representing Israel at the 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, he won the gold medal and the European championship in judo in the under 73 kg weight class.

He was ranked No. 3 in the world in February 2016.

Competing for Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics he came in 5th place.

Muki was born in, grew up in, and resides in Netanya, Israel, and is Jewish. As an eight-year-old child, he chose to focus on judo which he had been practicing for four years, despite excelling in football for a Netanya junior soccer team. He attended Tchernichovsky High School in Netanya. As of June 2015 he still resided with his parents, for reasons of convenience and proximity to the Wingate Institute sports training facility. He serves in the Israel Defense Forces as a Sergeant in the Vehicle Division at the Sde Dov airbase.

Muki is the protege of and has been coached since the age of four – for 19 years until he won the European Championship at the age of 23 – 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. Smadja is also the national team coach, and Muki views Smadja as a fatherly figure. His club is Maccabi Netanya, and he met future Israeli judoka world champion Yarden Gerbi there when he was four years old. 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".