The balmy beaches of Tel Aviv seem a world away from the icy mountains of northern Italy — not just a few hours’ flight.

For the next two weeks, a small but proud delegation of athletes will be bridging that gap as they represent Israel at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.

Nine Olympians and one Paralympian will fly the blue and white flag proudly in the frigid winds, aiming to make history for a country not known for its winter sport achievements. Israel has never won a Winter Olympics medal — although it has clinched 20 in total in the Summer Games — and that is highly unlikely to change this year.

“We feel the responsibility on our shoulders and the privilege of continuing to fly the Israeli flag in every location, and global sport is an incredible opportunity for that,” Yael Arad, the president of the Olympic Committee of Israel, told reporters during a press briefing in December. “We will be one of 90-something countries [there], and we’re very proud of that.”

Israel, said Arad, “is not a winter country; we’re not a country that specializes in winter.” Despite that, she added, “we expect to raise the Israeli flag and achieve the best results that our athletes can.”

Like at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, security is of top concern for Israel’s delegation, and protests against its participation are expected in both Milan and the ski resort of Cortina D’Ampezzo. At the Olympic torch relay in December, Italian police stopped pro-Palestinian activists from disrupting the proceedings.


A small group of activists protests the participation of Israel and the US in the Milan Cortina Olympic Games as the Olympic flame glides down the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, January 22, 2026. (AP/Luca Bruno)

Figure skater Mariia Seniuk is slated to be Israel’s flagbearer at the Milan opening ceremony on Friday, while skeleton athlete Jared Firestone will have the same honor at the simultaneous Cortina ceremony. The cities are more than a 4-hour drive apart, and the sporting events are split between the two locations.

Unlike at the Summer Games, Israel is not likely to face any drama relating to athletes from hostile countries backing out of matches or refusing to shake hands. None of the sports Israel will be competing in — nor the vast majority of the Winter Olympics disciplines — involve head-to-head matchups.

Here’s a look at the 10 athletes representing Israel at this year’s Games:

Mariia Seniuk

Mariia Seniuk, 20, Israel’s only figure skater at this year’s games, will be making her Olympic debut.

Born in Moscow, Seniuk has been skating since age 4, and moved with her family to Israel at age 8. In recent years, she has returned to Moscow to enable her to train on the highest level, due to limited infrastructure in Israel.


Mariia Seniuk of Israel performs during the women’s short program at the figure skating world championships, March 26, 2025, in Boston. (AP/Charles Krupa)

But Seniuk said she remains proud to compete under the Israeli flag on the world stage.

“Today there is so much antisemitism and many negative things said about Israel, but I feel like a Jew who is very proud to represent Israel,” she said in a December interview with the Makor Rishon newspaper. “When I’m competing, I’m focused on what I need to do, I’m not listening to background noise — and even if there is, it doesn’t affect me.”

Seniuk has won the Israeli Figure Skating Championships for the past four years running. At the 2026 European Figure Skating Championships, she finished 21st out of 38 competitors, and at the 2025 contest, she ended up in 13th place overall.

Seniuk will hit the ice on February 17 for the women’s short program, hoping to score high enough to advance to the women’s free skating, held on February 19.

Bobsleigh team 

The little bobsleigh team that could slid in just under the wire to clinch a reallocated spot at this year’s Winter Olympics — capping off an eight-year effort for team driver AJ Edelman, who represented Israel in skeleton at the 2018 Games.

Edelman, 34, an American-Israeli native of Boston, will be joined in Cortina by the rest of the team he recruited from other sports to help make his bobsleigh dream a reality, after just missing out on a spot in the 2022 Games.

Menachem Chen, 25, a former discus thrower, Omer Katz, 25, a former sprinter, Uri Zisman, 25, a former pole vaulter, and alternate Ward Fawarseh, 30, a former rugby player, will join Edelman in making history as they race down the icy track.

During a press conference last week in Tel Aviv, Zisman recalled receiving a call from Edelman out of the blue while he was traveling in India: “‘My name is AJ, I’m going to the Olympics, do you want to come with me?’ And I thought, ‘Who is this crazy guy?’”

Fawarseh, who would be Israel’s first-ever Druze Olympic athlete if he competes, told reporters that “until I met AJ, I didn’t even know there were Winter Olympics.”

Fawarseh said that his goal is to “represent the [Druze] community, to open doors to competitive sports on a high level.” His community has “so many young people with huge potential… and I want to be the person who can direct them and help them, and give them the tools.”


Israel’s 2026 Winter Olympics bobsleigh team, clockwise from back left: Omer Katz, Ward Fawarseh, Uri Zisman, AJ Edelman, Menachem Chen and coach Itamar Shprinz. (Courtesy)

Holding back tears, an emotional Edelman — whose brother is comedian Alex Edelman — said the team’s historic qualification for the Olympics was a personal and national dream.

“Without the flag, we are just the crazy people going down a mountain,” he said. “But with the flag, we are something else. The dream is for all of us to achieve our own personal best, but for our country as well, and for the people we represent.”

The team is scheduled to hit the ice on February 16 and 17 for the two-man bobsleigh heats, featuring Edelman and Chen, and on February 21 and 22 for the four-man races.

And yes, they’ve heard your “Cool Runnings” joke already. But they prefer “Shul Runnings.”

Barnabas and Noa Szollos

For the Hungarian-Israeli skiing siblings Barnabas and Noa Szollos, Milano Cortina marks their second Olympic appearance, after both also hit the slopes at the 2022 Beijing Games four years ago.


Israel’s Barnabas Szollos competes in a downhill run of a men’s team combined event, at the Alpine Ski World Championships, in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP/Marco Trovati)

Barnabas (Barni), 27, will compete in four events at this year’s Games, down from five in Beijing after Olympic officials dropped the individual alpine combined event. His surprise sixth-place finish in the men’s alpine combined in 2022 provided Israel with its best-ever Olympic skiing result and tied for its best-ever Winter Olympic finish in history.

Noa, 23, will also be competing in one fewer event than four years ago — returning for the slalom and the giant slalom, but not the Super-G.

At the 2022 Games, Noa finished 41st in the slalom and 34th in the super-G, but crashed out of the giant slalom. And just a few weeks ago, Noa made history by scoring Israel’s first-ever World Cup points in alpine skiing while competing in the slalom in Slovenia.

Barni and Noa both took up skiing at a young age — along with their third sibling, Benjamin — following in the footsteps of their father, Peter Szollos, who also competed for Israel. The family lives in Hungary, and the skiing sibs train in Austria.


Israel’s Noa Szollos speeds down the course during the super-G portion of an alpine ski, women’s World Championship combined race, in Meribel, France, Feb. 6, 2023. (AP/Marco Trovati)

In an interview with the Ynet news site last month, Noa said that competing for the Jewish state “was nice to connect to Israel this way, to learn about a new culture, a new country. It was a good decision that helped us a lot… I feel very connected to my Jewish roots.”

Barni is slated to compete in the men’s downhill on February 7, the super-G on February 11, the giant slalom on February 14 and the slalom on February 16. Noa will hit the snow in the women’s giant slalom on February 15 and the slalom on February 18.

Jared Firestone

Jared Firestone, 35, a native of Florida, will compete in the skeleton in Cortina following a 10-year journey to the Olympic Games.

Firestone, who received Israeli citizenship in 2019, took up the sport in 2015 while in law school, thinking that his background as a runner would be a boon.

In 2022, he finished just three spots short of qualifying for the Beijing Winter Olympics, and not long after, he suffered an injury that kept him off the ice for months.


Jared Firestone of Israel competes during the men’s skeleton race heats at the 2025 IBSF World Championships at Mt Van Hoevenberg on March 6, 2025, in Lake Placid, New York. (Al Bello/Getty Images/AFP)

But after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, Firestone felt a renewed “need to get out there as soon as possible” and represent Israel, he told The Times of Israel in an interview last month.

During this year’s Olympic qualifying season, Firestone said, “I just knew it was impossible that anybody was outworking me… any second where I could be doing something to improve, I had to be taking it.”

And mid-January, he achieved the goal, winning a spot in the 2026 Olympics for himself and Israel: “I don’t think it will [sink in] until I get to Cortina.”

Firestone is slated to race on February 12 and 13 in the men’s skeleton heats.

Attila Mihaly Kertesz

Attila Mihaly Kertesz, 37, a Hungarian native who lives in Thailand, is not a likely Israeli Winter Olympian.

But the trained veterinarian will become Israel’s first-ever Olympic cross-country skier when the Games open this week.


Israeli skier Attila Mihaly Kertesz competes in the men’s 10km interval start free at the FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Trondheim, Norway, December 7, 2025. (Marius Gulliksrud/ action press via Reuters)

Kertesz became Israeli in 2024 after a several-year journey to citizenship through his wife’s Jewish heritage. He wanted to compete on the world stage for Israel in a bid to make history.

“It’s historic to be the first [Israeli] cross-country skier,” he told The Times of Israel in an interview last year. “I thought, OK, this is something I can give back to my nation.”

He said he hopes to set an example for other people to pursue their dreams, no matter how outlandish.

“I was 30 years old when I decided to do it on a competitive level,” he pointed out. “So it’s never too late if you have the motivation.”

Kertesz will compete on February 13 in the men’s 10km race.

Sheina Vaspi 

Sheina Vaspi, 24, made history in 2022 as Israel’s first-ever Winter Paralympian.

She will be returning to the slopes this year with four more years of experience, and after the loss of her beloved cousin, Cpt. (res.) Arnon Benveniste Vaspi, who was killed in November 2023 while fighting in Gaza.

“After the shiva, I decided to return to training, because that’s who Arnon was,” she told the Ynet news site in an interview last year. “He pushed for excellence. He had a saying that stayed with me this whole time: ‘What comes easy, goes easy. Everything takes persistence, hard work, and in the end, it pays off. Those who keep going, work hard and don’t give up get results.’”


Israel’s Sheina Vaspi competes in the women’s giant slalom standing alpine skiing event at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre in Yanqing during the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games on March 11, 2022. (WANG Zhao / AFP)

Vaspi grew up in a Chabad family in Yesud Hama’ala in northern Israel. As a young child, she lost her left leg in a traffic accident. She began skiing as a teenager and fell in love with the sport, the competition and the training.

At the 2022 Games, Vaspi finished 15th in alpine skiing, but skipped the slalom event after weather conditions forced Olympic officials to move the race to Shabbat.

In January 2025, she suffered a tough injury that sidelined her for months, but she fought her way back to the slopes.

“I want to put the Israeli flag everywhere I can, even though at first I was very worried because of rising antisemitism,” she told Ynet. Vaspi said she “drew strength from [her cousin’s] courage — from the stories I heard — and brought that into my sport.”

Vaspi is scheduled to hit the snow in Cortina during the Paralympics in mid-March.

Follow The Times of Israel for full coverage of Israel’s delegation at the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.