Israel’s first-ever bobsled team focused on Winter Olympics history amid Gaza war backlash
Israel's first bobsled team is set to compete in the Winter Olympics in Italy despite backlash over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza
Israel is set to make an unexpected debut in bobsleigh at this year’s Milan Cortina Winter Games, with a diverse team of athletes, many of whom had never touched a sled before this season.
The squad, comprising a pole-vaulter, sprinter, shot-putter, rugby player, and a former Olympian in skeleton, will represent their nation on the global stage.
Leading the team is AJ Edelman, believed to be the first Orthodox Jew to compete in a Winter Games, while founding member Ward Farwaseh is poised to become the first Druze Olympian.
Their participation comes at a sensitive time, as Israel’s presence in international sports has faced boycotts and backlash due to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where more than 71,800 Palestinians have been killed, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Despite the geopolitical tensions, the athletes express pride in representing Israel, hoping to inspire young Israeli sportspeople and establish a foundation for future success in the sport.
"I used to be at the bottom of the pack athletically, and I made it here to the Olympics, so there must be some self-selection process," Edelman told AP from Italy.
"I’m very sure that with this programme now — with the infrastructure that has been set up — Israel will become a force in bobsled." He has even coined a new term for their journey, "Shul Runnings," a nod to the 1993 film "Cool Runnings."
Edelman’s own path to the Olympics has been one of defiance. In 2014, a skeleton scout dismissed his potential due to scoliosis and poor balance, telling the American-Israeli from Brookline, Massachusetts, he was "no Tom Brady."
Undeterred, Edelman taught himself through YouTube tutorials, qualifying for the 2018 Olympics where he finished 28th of 30. He then embarked on the ambitious task of assembling a bobsleigh team.
"It’s very tough for me to understand what would compel anyone else to want to get inside of basically a trash can and get kicked off the side of a mountain. Who does that?" he remarked.
His recruitment drive involved messaging Israel’s rugby team roster on Instagram, eventually reaching Fawarseh, from the Druze city of Majhar in northern Israel.
The Druze community numbers around one million globally, with 115,000 in Israel and 25,000 in the Golan Heights. Fawarseh initially dismissed Edelman’s message as a scam.
"I didn’t believe it. I didn’t even know that there was a Winter Olympics before, until I met AJ," he admitted.
The team narrowly missed qualification for the Beijing Games by 0.1 second, setting their sights on 2026.
However, their plans were disrupted a week before their qualification run when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages. Israel’s subsequent retaliation led to most of Edelman’s teammates being drafted.
Edelman and Fawarseh issued a new call for athletes, bringing in Israeli shot-putter Menachem Chen, sprinter Omer Katz, pole vaulter Uri Zisman, and crossfit athlete Itamar Shprinz as coach.
Shprinz, initially unfamiliar with the sport, needed clarification: "I knew in the back of my head it was something about sleds and winter sports, but not what you needed to do in the sport."
Two days later, he was in Europe, then Canada, for his first ride. "It was terrible, I passed out. It’s a hard sport," he recalled. The revitalised team secured an Olympic spot at Lake Placid last month.
Israel will send five other athletes to the Games: figure skater Maria Seniuk, skiers Noa and Barnabas Szollos, cross-country skier Atila Mihaly Kertesz, and skeleton athlete Jared Firestone.
Yael Arad, chair of the Israel Olympic Committee, conveyed a message to the Olympians: "Leave in peace and return in peace... you are carrying the torch of generations of Jewish and Israeli sports tradition, and every time you wave the Israeli flag, do so in the name of those who dreamed and did not arrive, those who are in our hearts forever."
Calls have emerged for Israeli athletes to be treated similarly to their Russian counterparts, competing as "Individual Neutral Athletes" without national symbols or anthems.
The International Olympic Committee has stated that the legal grounds for action against Russia do not apply to Israel, without providing further explanation.
Addressing the sentiment, Edelman said: "There was an athlete who told us in the summer that he would never represent Israel because ‘you don’t kill children.’
“We’ve always known that those sentiments exist... on the team, we don’t modify the behaviour too much.
“We’re proud,” Zisman added: "My mom says to me, ‘Isn’t it dangerous that you’ll have a star of David on your back?’ I say, no mom, that’s what we do. We do the best we can."
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