The Olympic Committee of Israel (OCI) withdrew its own team from the men\u2019s four-man bobsled on Sunday, the last day of the 2026 Winter Games, because an athlete lied about being ill so that the team\u2019s alternate could take his place for the last run.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s team took part in the first two heats of the competition on Saturday, but was the slowest sled to complete both runs.<\/p>\n
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, \u201cit was more important to us that our alternate could have the opportunity to compete in the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the OCI said: \u201cThe heads of the delegation \u2026 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result, a decision was made not to allow the bobsleigh team to participate in (Sunday\u2019s) 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The official 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics website listed the Israeli team as DNS, as in \u201cdid not start,\u201d but the International Skeleton and Bobsleigh Federation, the sport\u2019s governing body, told The Athletic they had been \u201cwithdrawn\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI apologize profusely for the disappointment,\u201d Edelman wrote on X. \u201cBut I will always remain proud that the team looked at their Druze brother, who had earned his place on the team, and unanimously said \u2018we want this for you.\u2019 I signed off on it and I take responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cthousands of dollars\u201d were taken, and that local police were investigating.<\/p>\n
A week later, during his performance in the two-man bobsled event, a commentator on Swiss broadcaster RTS chose to speak only about Edelman\u2019s public support for Israel\u2019s military operations in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cEdelman \u2026 a self-described \u2018Zionist to the core\u2019, who has posted several messages on social media in support of the genocide in Gaza,\u201d said RTS commentator Stefan Renna, according to a broadcast translation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis raises the question of his presence in Cortina during these Games, since the (International Olympic Committee) had indicated that athletes who have \u2014 and I quote \u2014 \u2018actively supported the war by participating in pro-war events, being militarily engaged, or via their activities on their social media networks\u2019 were not eligible to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n
That clip was later removed from the RTS website, but not before it was widely viewed and shared on social media.<\/p>\n
Edelman responded to Renna\u2019s comments in several posts on Instagram and X.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo all the haters out there, this is fuel for us,\u201d he wrote in one. \u201cIt\u2019s not new, it\u2019s not creative, and it\u2019s pretty pathetic.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s avoid crew 21, which is Israeli,\u201d was heard by viewers across Italy.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, RAI Sport\u2019s interim director Marco Lollobrigida issued a statement to the \u201coff-air remark \u2026 in no way represents the values of public service broadcasting or of RAI Sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued by extending his \u201csincere apologies\u201d to the Israeli athletes, the delegation and RAI\u2019s viewers, adding that \u201cinternal reviews have been launched to determine responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The four bobsled athletes constituted nearly half of Israel\u2019s 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\u2019s Olympic debut in bobsled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Olympic Committee of Israel (OCI) withdrew its own team from the men\u2019s four-man bobsled on Sunday, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,6661],"class_list":["post-305174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}