From the Liveblog of
Friday, October 30, 2026
Panel finds Swiss TV commentary on Israel’s Olympic bobsleigh team was ‘discriminatory’
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A Swiss public broadcaster’s commentary on an Israeli bobsleigh crew’s run at the 2026 Winter Olympics was discriminatory, according to a national panel examining viewer complaints.
The nine-member independent panel voted 5-4 to uphold four public complaints about the broadcast in February by French-language network RTS, the complaints authority known by its French acronym AIEP says in its ruling.
When Adam Edelman piloted Israel’s two-man bobsleigh crew at the Milan Cortina Winter Games, RTS broadcaster Stefan Renna quoted from the athlete’s social media comments in support of the military during the conflict in Gaza.
The broadcaster cited the International Olympic Committee’s rules prohibiting neutral Russian athletes from supporting the war in Ukraine and noted a United Nations-backed report which described the conflict in Gaza as a genocide — a charge Israel strongly disputes.
The commentary by Renna, the complaints panel judges announced today, amounted to unequal treatment compared to the other 25 bobsled crews who were described just in a sports context.
“[The] majority of members came to the conclusion that the commentary, probably prepared in advance, suggesting that the Israeli athlete should be excluded from the Olympic Games because of his political views had conveyed a stigmatizing and therefore discriminatory message against him,” the ruling says.
The Times of Israel Community.