As a rising basketball talent, Moran Samuel turned to rowing after suffering a spinal stroke in 2006, leaving her lower body paralyzed.

She played for Israel's national team at the European Wheelchair Basketball Championships in 2013 and was selected one of the best five players in Europe.

She turned to para-rowing so she could represent Israel at the Paralympic Games which she did in 2012, 2016 and 2020.

In 2012 she won a single scull competition at the Adaptive Rowing Regatta in Italy. The organizers did not have a recording of Hatikvah so Samuel sang it in a stirring rendition.

In 2015, she won the gold medal at a World Cup event in Lake Varese defeating the reigning world champion and later that year won the World Rowing Championship in the women's arms-shoulders (AS) single sculls.

At the 2015 World Rowing Championships, she won the gold medal in the women's AS single sculls. Also, she earned the bronze medal in June 2016 at the World Rowing Cup.

Moran Samuel won the silver medal in the arms-only single sculls at the 2020 Summer Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

Photo credit to Detlev Syeb.