Peter Paltchik (Hebrew: פיטר פלצ׳יק, romanized: Piter Palchik; Ukrainian: Петер Пальтчик, romanized: Peter Palchyk; born 4 January 1992) is a Ukrainian-born Israeli Olympic and former European champion judoka,[3] competing in the under 100 kg weight category, of which he was the number 1 ranked judoka in the world.

He was born in a difficult 53–54 hour birth, as he was not in the correct position, as a sick baby at a weight of 5.1 kilograms (11 lb) with crooked and fractured bones and various health problems, and the doctor recommended his family let Paltchik practice sports.

"[10] In September, Paltchik competed in the 2011 European Junior Championships in Lumel, Belgium, and  won a silver medal in the ‍–‍90 kg weight category.

[13] In June 2012, Paltchik underwent a complicated surgery in the right knee following a rupture of the posterior cruciate ligament during routine training.

[18] In 2015, Paltchik decided, together with the national team coach, to raise the weight category ‍–‍100 kg in order to improve his performance on the mat.

In June, he participated in the 2015 European Games held in Baku, and was eliminated in the second round by Frenchman Cyrille Maret.

[29][30] Later that month, he won a gold medal in the 2017 Cancún Grand Prix in Mexico,[31][32] after winning in the semifinals against the Brazilian former world champion, Luciano Correra, and beating Irish Benjamin Fletcher by a waza-ari.

In October, Paltchik won a bronze medal at the 2017 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam,[35][36] after defeating Miklós Cirjenics from Hungary.

In April, Paltchik won the gold medal in the 2018 Tbilisi Grand Prix in Georgia,[37][38] when he defeated Merab Margiev of Russia in the final, after two minutes and a half.

At that stage, Paltchik overcame Zelym Kotsoiev from Azerbaijan, when a minute and 13 seconds to the end of the fight, he managed to get a waza-ari.

Afterwards, Paltchik competed for the bronze medal, facing the Russian Niyaz Bilalov, and won the fight after 39 seconds, after scoring an ippon.

In August, Paltchik competed in the 2018 Budapest Grand Prix in Hungary and won a bronze medal,[42][43] after defeating Martin Pacek of Sweden with an ippon.

In October, he won the gold medal in the 2018 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam,[44][45] after defeating German Karl-Richard Frey in the semifinal, and the Olympic silver medalist Elmar Gasimov in the final.

In November, he won the gold medal in the 2018 The Hague Grand Prix[46][47] when he defeated the Belarusian Mikita Sviryd in the final after the fight entered the golden score time.

[55] In January Paltchik won the gold medal in 2020 Tel Aviv Grand Prix by defeating Brazilian Leonardo Gonçalves.

[72] He was also chosen as Olympic flagbearer jointly with Andrea Murez; the decision attracted scrutiny on social media amid the Israel–Hamas war, after a tweet he had posted, containing a picture of munitions he had signed accompanied by the text "from me to you with pleasure", resurfaced.