How ‘Jewish Jet’ Jared Firestone slid his way into the 2026 Winter Olympics |
In 2023, Jared Firestone wasn’t sure if he would ever get back on the skeleton track.
A year earlier, he had just missed out on qualifying to represent Israel in the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Then he tore his bicep at the gym and took six months off to heal, and “really didn’t know if I would slide again.”
“And then October 7 happened,” recounted Firestone, 35, in an interview with The Times of Israel in Jerusalem last week. “And obviously I was like, I need to get out there as soon as possible and represent [Israel].”
Firestone said his initial instinct after the bloody October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of Israel was to head there on a volunteer trip.
“And then I think, what’s my unique contribution that only I can do to support Israel and support Jewish people, and give them some sense of pride and hope? That was to do skeleton,” he said.
By October 9, two days after the massacre, Firestone was back in the gym — and by November 13, he was sliding down the frozen track at Lake Placid, New York. Two years later, in October 2025, he stood at the start of the qualifying season for the 2026 Winter Olympics more determined than ever to clinch a spot in the Games.
That was a goal he pursued with “tons of confidence every day, just starting with the affirmations, a little prayer, wrapping tefillin, but also just knowing that I put in so much more work than ever before,” he said, using the Hebrew word for the phylacteries worn during prayer. “I just knew it was impossible that anybody was outworking me… because it was not just [about] making the Games for myself, but so many hundreds of people contributed their money to my cause, and I just couldn’t let them down. So any second where I could be doing something to improve, I had to be taking........