Israel’s bobsleigh team clinches spot at 2026 Winter Olympics

Israel made ice-cold history on Thursday after qualifying a bobsleigh team for the Winter Olympics for the first time.

The four-man team, headed by pilot AJ Edelman – who has been working tirelessly toward this goal for the past eight years – will hit the track at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games in just a couple of weeks.

The team managed to clinch a place after reallocation – finishing just one spot out of contention in the official rankings, but garnering an invitation to the Games after the UK decided to send only one team instead of two.

“This is a historic achievement,” said the Olympic Committee of Israel in a statement confirming it had received an invitation from the International Olympic Committee for the team.

Alongside Edelman, the bobsleigh team is made up of Menachem Chen, Ward Fawarseh and Omer Katz, with Uri Zisman also heading to Italy as an alternate.

Edelman, an American-Israeli athlete who represented Israel in men’s skeleton at the 2018 Beijing Olympics, has fought ever since then to qualify a bobsleigh team for Israel, finishing just one spot short in the 2022 qualification.

“Dreams do come true. For this dream, that day is today,” Edelman wrote on Instagram on Thursday. “The Israeli Bobsled Team is now ‘The Israeli Olympic Bobsled Team.’ We are headed to Milan.”

Edelman thanked all his supporters for “being a part of this journey… let’s go make more history.”

The qualification of the team almost doubles Israel’s delegation to the 2026 Winter Olympics, with nine athletes now expected to compete in Milano Cortina. Last week, skeleton athlete Jared Firestone confirmed his spot, joining alpine skiing siblings Noa and Barnabos Szollos, figure skater Mariia Seniuk and cross-country skier Attila Mihaly Kertesz to wave Israel’s flag at the Games.

The unlikely Olympic bid has drawn many comparisons to the famed Jamaican bobsled journey immortalized in the 1993 film “Cool Runnings.” And the Israeli team faced an added hurdle this year, when the Olympic Committee of Israel ordered it to stop using non-Israeli athletes in any qualification races, despite international rules allowing for it.

But in the remaining races in Lake Placid, New York, earlier this month, the team managed to do well enough to clinch an Olympic spot following the reallocation, competing with only Israeli citizens on the team.

Speaking to The Times of Israel in 2022, just after not making the Olympic cut that year, Edelman vowed that “this mission is not done, and this mission really needs to be completed.” He added, “I’m just motivated to make this thing work for 2026. So I’m already putting the plans in place.”

David Greaves, the president of the Israeli Olympic Bobsleigh Skeleton Federation, told The Times of Israel on Thursday that “this has been a 24-year journey for me – from when we established the first bobsled team in 2002.”

Greaves noted that not only has Edelman now made history as an Israeli Olympian in two different disciplines, but that his federation will be contributing five out of the nine athletes at the Milano Cortina Games.

“That’s a huge sense of pride,” he said. “To know that we’re contributing in a significant way to the delegation at these Olympic Games is very, very exciting.”

Greaves said the team is “just so excited to be packing our bags and to be once again, standing behind the Israeli flag” on the world stage.

“At the Olympic Games, with all the eyes from around the world, to see the Israeli flag flying now at the bobsled and skeleton track is something that will be forever meaningful to all of us.”