The Olympic Committee of Israel (OCI) withdrew its own team from the men’s four-man bobsled on Sunday, the last day of the 2026 Winter Games, because an athlete lied about being ill so that the team’s alternate could take his place for the last run.
Israel’s team took part in the first two heats of the competition on Saturday, but was the slowest sled to complete both runs.
In two posts on his X account, team leader and pilot Adam Edelman wrote that given the fact they were very unlikely to qualify for a fourth run, which is reserved for the top 20, “it was more important to us that our alternate could have the opportunity to compete in the Olympics.”
The plan, Edelman explained, was to substitute Uri Zisman for Ward Fawarseh, which would make him the first Druze Israeli to compete on the Olympic stage. Druze are an ethnically Arab minority group in Israel who follow an offshoot of Islam.
Substitutions in bobsled events, however, are only allowed if someone is injured or ill, so Zisman agreed to say he was too sick to compete, even signing an affidavit to that effect. The plan collapsed when Israeli team officials found out what they were doing and immediately suspended the bobsled team.
In a statement, the OCI said: “The heads of the delegation … received information according to which members of the bobsleigh team requested to replace one of the participants in an improper manner that does not meet the standards expected of Olympic athletes and is not in line with Olympic values.
“As a result, a decision was made not to allow the bobsleigh team to participate in (Sunday’s) competition. A thorough review will be conducted when the team returns at the end of the Games. The decision on the immediate suspension was also made with the agreement of the athletes themselves.
“The Olympic Committee of Israel views any deviation from the Olympic values as unacceptable and cannot accept inappropriate behavior. It should be emphasized that, up to this point, the participation of the bobsleigh delegation has taken place in the spirit of sport and without any violations by the athletes.”
The official 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics website listed the Israeli team as DNS, as in “did not start,” but the International Skeleton and Bobsleigh Federation, the sport’s governing body, told The Athletic they had been “withdrawn”.
“I apologize profusely for the disappointment,” Edelman wrote on X. “But I will always remain proud that the team looked at their Druze brother, who had earned his place on the team, and unanimously said ‘we want this for you.’ I signed off on it and I take responsibility.”
The incident brought an end to an eventful Games for Edelman, which started two weeks ago when he revealed on X that thieves had broken into the apartment he and his teammates were staying in during their pre-Games training camp in the Czech Republic. He wrote that passports and personal belongings worth “thousands of dollars” were taken, and that local police were investigating.
A week later, during his performance in the two-man bobsled event, a commentator on Swiss broadcaster RTS chose to speak only about Edelman’s public support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza.
“Edelman … a self-described ‘Zionist to the core’, who has posted several messages on social media in support of the genocide in Gaza,” said RTS commentator Stefan Renna, according to a broadcast translation.
“This raises the question of his presence in Cortina during these Games, since the (International Olympic Committee) had indicated that athletes who have — and I quote — ‘actively supported the war by participating in pro-war events, being militarily engaged, or via their activities on their social media networks’ were not eligible to participate.”
That clip was later removed from the RTS website, but not before it was widely viewed and shared on social media.
Edelman responded to Renna’s comments in several posts on Instagram and X.
“To all the haters out there, this is fuel for us,” he wrote in one. “It’s not new, it’s not creative, and it’s pretty pathetic.”
Italian broadcaster RAI apologised on Saturday for an off-camera comment that was heard during their broadcast of the opening heats of the four-man bobsled.
“Let’s avoid crew 21, which is Israeli,” was heard by viewers across Italy.
Shortly afterwards, RAI Sport’s interim director Marco Lollobrigida issued a statement to the “off-air remark … in no way represents the values of public service broadcasting or of RAI Sport.”
He continued by extending his “sincere apologies” to the Israeli athletes, the delegation and RAI’s viewers, adding that “internal reviews have been launched to determine responsibility.”
The four bobsled athletes constituted nearly half of Israel’s nine-person team at the Milan Cortina games. Israel also fielded competitors in alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating and skeleton. The Milan Cortina Olympics were the country’s Olympic debut in bobsled.