Israeli Olympic bobsleigh team proud to represent country despite last-place finish

The Israeli Olympic bobsleigh team celebrated their last-place finish in the 2-man bobsleigh competition. While other teams competed for medals, the Israeli team expressed pride in making history by qualifying for the Olympics last month for the first time in Israeli sports. 

The Israeli team’s American-born pilot, Adam J. Edelman, and his brakeman, Menachem Chen, finished 26th on Tuesday evening. Yet they said they were proud to represent the Jewish state at the Winter Olympics in Italy.

“What we accomplished today, some kid is going to see in 10, 15, 20 years, and he’s going to be inspired by that to do his own journey,” Edelman said in an interview with Israel's Sport5 channel. 

“We’re very proud, we’re moving forward to the four-man event,” he continued. “Israel is in the Olympics, baby! We did something unbelievable in this sport, to do it by ourselves, piecing it together. People might not realize how amazing this accomplishment is for this country.”

Edelman tried unsuccessfully in 2018 to bring the Israeli bobsleigh team to the Olympics. However, he refused to give up and vowed that the Israeli team would eventually qualify for the prestigious competition, a vision that materialized last month after many years of hard work and training. 

“We always want to be the first but not the last,” Edelman said in an interview with the Associated Press on Monday.

“I was very sure that, if we didn’t get it done, there would never be an Israeli bobsleigh team in the Games, because no one was going to fight for that. Now we’ve set a precedent. Others can come after us,” he argued.

Despite the last place in the two-man bobsleigh competition, the team’s pilot remains upbeat about the rest of the competition. 

“Today we had some difficulties, but every day we shave off almost a second from the previous day’s time,” Edelman told Sport5. “I’m positive that in the four-man we’ll have much better results."

“One of the most amazing things about representing Israel is, you know, in your heart that it’s the greatest country in the entire world,” Edelman explained. “Representing a country for 12 years – I get out of bed to do this, because it’s such an amazing place to represent… I live a very blessed life. I get to compete with the flag on my chest,” he added. 

The American-born pilot spoke in more detail about the pride he feels in representing the Jewish state at the Olympics in an interview with the Christian journalist Paul Calvert.

“I'm really proud for the country,” Edelman said. “I mean, the country has done something here that is rarely ever done anymore – which is a new country breaking into the Olympic bobsled family. It's just quite a stunning accomplishment,” he assessed.

In addition to Edelman, the Israeli bobsleigh team consists of Uri Zisman, Omer Katz, Ward Farwaseh and Itamar Shprinz.

Farwaseh, a former rugby player, is the first member of the Druze community to represent Israel at the Olympics. 

A Swiss broadcaster caused controversy on Tuesday by claiming that Edelman should have been barred from the Olympics due to his “support of the genocide in Gaza.”

Edelman dismissed the false accusation by calling it “such a sad thing to do.” However, he optimistically predicted that soon “no one is going to remember that.”