Miracle on ice: 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........