Israel wrote a new page in sports history on January 22. Its first-ever bobsled team qualified for the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. “This is a historic achievement,” the Olympic Committee of Israel said in a statement confirming that the International Olympic Committee had invited the team. “Dreams do come true. For this dream, that day is today,” said pilot AJ Edelman. “The Israeli Bobsled Team is now ‘The Israeli Olympic Bobsled Team.’ We are headed to Milan.\u201d Edelman has worked for eight years to achieve this goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team qualified thanks to its results in the North American Cup and a subsequent repechage. Edelman will be joined by Menachem Chen, Ward Fawarsy, and Omer Katz, with Uri Zisman as reserve. Before this qualification, the team members competed in other sports. Chen was the Israeli national shot put champion for years; Katz comes from CrossFit and weightlifting; and Fawarsy and Zisman come from rugby. Both Fawarsy and Zisman are Druze athletes from Galilee. They have different backgrounds, but they are united by their choice to reinvent themselves and take on a discipline that is practically non-existent in Israel. “We are going to Milan to write another page in history,” said Edelman. With the addition of the bobsleigh team, the Israeli delegation to the Winter Games now has nine athletes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"