Israeli skier’s journey to Winter Olympic slopes was an up- and downhill battle |
Attila Mihaly Kertesz is an unlikely Olympian. But he’s an even more unlikely Israeli Olympian.
Come February, Kertesz – a 37-year-old veterinarian who was born and raised in Hungary and now lives in Thailand – will take to the cross-country ski slopes with the Israeli emblem on his arm at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.
And he only began training in the sport in 2018.
“In the beginning, I told a very few people because I thought… people [would be] skeptical,” Kertesz told The Times of Israel in a recent phone interview.
He said he expected to hear, “‘Oh, this is not realistic. You are too old. Try something else.’ And I didn’t want to hear these negative voices. So I told very few people about my goal.”
But on December 7, Kertesz accomplished what many thought impossible, hitting the qualification criteria at the FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Trondheim, Norway, and clinching a spot in the Olympic Games.
He will be one of just a handful of athletes expected to represent Israel in Milano Cortina next year. Israel, which made its Winter Olympics debut in 1994, has never won a medal at the cold-weather games. The country – known more for its sunny Mediterranean climate than snow or ice – sent just six athletes to the 2022 Games in Beijing, and has never sent more than 10.
For Kertesz, making history is one of the things that pulled him toward the Olympics and to competing for Israel as its first-ever Olympic cross-country skier.
“It’s historic to be the first [Israeli] cross-country skier,” he said. “I thought, OK, this is something I can give back to my nation.”
Kertesz’s journey to becoming an Israeli citizen has been almost as arduous as his path to the Olympics. In 2015, he said, he and his family decided that they wanted to move from Hungary to Israel, where they were eligible for citizenship due to his wife’s Jewish heritage.
After working toward that goal, they finally moved to Tel Aviv in February 2020, “and we........