| Eilat's Olympic bronze medalist touched down at the Eilat airport on Wednesday after a grueling few weeks in Beijin (Qingdao), to be met by hordes of well-wishers and congratulations. Navigating between competitors on the waves has been replaced by navigating amongst crowds of admirers who are so proud of their home-grown hero they could burst. His feet had barely touched the soil of home before he was whisked off to a reception held by the Eilat Municipality, and later in the evening to a brief ceremony at the Red Sea International Jazz Festival.
The Municipality reception was held at the Sailing Club, where Shachar has trained for so many years. Friends, family, navy mates, and fellow sailing students were all there to greet him, along with many small children present who all crowded in to ask for photographs with their hero. Shachar obligingly put an arm around each in turn, smiling and holding out his medal while proud parents took photos.
He even found himself signing autographs, a task that required using the wall of the club as a ‘table'. Imagining how exhausted he must be, and as the parent of a son his schoolmate, I have to admire Shachar for the patience and forbearance and constant smile he was able to give each person asking for a piece of him.
It was very heartwarming to see, however, that the demands of fame are a tiny price to pay for the perks it is bringing Shachar. After a performance by the Family Band, the mayor of Eilat came onto the stage to congratulate Shachar and emphasise the City's intent to support water sports in general and Shachar toward the London Olympics in particular, while awarding Shachar a huge plague.
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This was followed by the president of the Ben Gurion University, Eilat Campus, who said the university is awarding Shachar a full scholarship for a degree and postgrad (M.Sc.) studies.
 Then, it turned out that this was the Hebrew date of Shachar’s 22nd birthday, so a cake beautifully decorated with a windsurf image was presented to Shachar, to sweeten his day. 
After the speeches, an adorable and very talented group of little girls called the Lollipop troupe came on stage to do a dance choreographed to a windsurfing song.
Unfortunately, we had to cut our visit short at this stage in order to race into town and send off video footage to the national news channel before the evening news begins.
However, we got to see more of Shachar later - his day was not yet over. At the jazz festival at 10:30 PM, the mayor and the festival organiser ascended an outdoor stage to express their official congratulations to him, as well as awarding him a Gold Pass to all future jazz festivals.
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