It doesn’t matter what occurs when Israel’s bobsled workforce hits the ice subsequent week on the 2026 Winter Olympics, workforce captain Adam “AJ” Edelman has already had a 12 months for the historical past books.
The 34-year-old Brookline, Massachusetts, native is the primary Orthodox Jewish athlete to compete on the Winter Olympics, and now the primary Israeli to qualify for the Video games in two sports activities. He positioned twenty eighth in skeleton on the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.
However for Edelman, the 12-year journey that culminated in Israel’s first-ever Olympic bobsled look — which he has nicknamed “Shul Runnings,” a spin on the 1993 film about Jamaica’s bobsled workforce — is about greater than success on the observe.
“The Olympics have been by no means a purpose,” Edelman informed the Jewish Telegraphic Company in an interview previous to the Video games. “The Olympics have been the software, or the stepping stone, to get to the purpose, which was to essentially redefine, or change, how our group — each the Israeli and the Jewish one — view funding into and the position of sport.”
Edelman’s journey started in 2013, when Israel tried to recruit him to play for its nationwide hockey workforce. Hockey had been Edelman’s first sport, which he performed by faculty on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, the place he was the primary Shabbat-observant participant in program historical past.
Edelman mentioned the thought with the long-time alumni director of his Jewish day faculty, Brookline’s Maimonides College. Mike Rosenberg pointed one thing out to Edelman that finally sparked a calling.
“AJ, nobody from this faculty has ever gotten to the extent of sport past highschool that you simply’ve gotten to that didn’t go to, let’s say, [Yeshiva University] or Brandeis,” Edelman remembers Rosenberg, who died final 12 months, telling him in regards to the two traditionally Jewish faculties.
Edelman couldn’t imagine that. Out of hundreds of Maimonides alumni (together with his older brother, Emmy award-winning comic Alex Edelman), solely Edelman — who referred to as himself “not a really gifted athlete” — had reached that degree? He had a principle as to why that could be.
(L-R): AJ Edelman, Alex Edelman and Austin Edelman pose on the opening night time of the brand new one man present “Alex Edelman Only for Us” at The Hudson Theatre on June 26, 2023 in New York Metropolis. (Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
“I got here to the conclusion that it needed to be a self-selection course of,” Edelman defined. “That folks have been deciding on out of sport as a journey earlier than they acquired to that degree. And why have been they doing it? As a result of there was no precedence positioned on sport. It wasn’t one thing folks in our group aspired to do or put money into.”
Edelman stated the dearth of funding in sports activities led to an absence of infrastructure and a dearth of position fashions for Jewish children to look as much as. He got down to change that — to “be the change.”
“The one means to do this was a certificates, so to talk, of excellence in sport, and that’s the Video games,” he stated. “The Video games are primarily the certificates of, ‘you probably did one thing.’ So in that means, the Olympics turned very, very a lot the software for which I needed to make the change.”
Edelman started coaching in skeleton after graduating from MIT in 2014. His preliminary scouting report was not promising: he was informed he was “not athletic, would by no means make the Olympics, and would by no means be aggressive in sliding sport.”
That didn’t deter him. Edelman moved to Israel in 2016, the place he stored coaching, educating himself the game on YouTube when he couldn’t afford a coach. He finally clinched Israel’s first sliding sport Olympic look in 2018.
Then the pandemic hit. Edelman was pursuing an MBA at Yale College when courses have been suspended. Edelman was visiting Jordana Balsam, a detailed pal who’s an legal professional in New York Metropolis, when the Olympics got here up.
“He was telling me about his historical past with skeleton, and the way he competed within the 2018 Video games, and the way he was truly actually intrigued by bobsled,” Balsam recalled. “And in an offhand remark, I’m like, ‘Effectively, why don’t you pursue that, since you might have this day off from Yale?’ And I assume one thing clicked in his mind, the place he was identical to, ‘Sure, I’m gonna do this.’ And the remainder is historical past.”
Edelman started working towards bringing Israel to the Olympics in bobsled. Once more, there have been hurdles. He needed to recruit a workforce from scratch. Israel’s personal athletic authorities have been skeptical — its Olympic committee virtually didn’t settle for an invite to the 2026 Video games. Funding was virtually non-existent. Nonetheless, the workforce continued coaching, finally lacking out on Olympic qualification for the 2022 Video games by 0.1 second.
Then got here Oct. 7, 2023, and the next Gaza battle, through which 5 members of the workforce have been referred to as into fight and a number of workforce sponsors backed out. Nonetheless, Edelman stored his eye skilled on the 2026 Video games. He used Instagram DMs to recruit a brand new workforce — most of whom play different sports activities and had by no means been in a bobsled — which additionally options Israel’s first Druze Olympian, Ward Farwasy.
Israel finally certified in late January at an occasion in Lake Placid, the identical location the place Edelman had been informed 12 years in the past that he’d by no means make it. The workforce usually trains there, in addition to in Park Metropolis, Utah, British Columbia and elsewhere. Edelman stated he’s hardly ever in the identical place for various weeks at a time.
“As soon as he had one thing in his head — an thought, an idea, a purpose that he has — he dives into it 200%, and it’s one thing that I like vastly,” Balsam stated. “I’ve by no means seen anybody so devoted to their craft, to their sport, to their purpose. It truly is inspirational.”
However even qualifying for the Video games didn’t finish the obstacles. On account of Olympic safety, Edelman stated his workforce’s coaching time in Cortina was restricted. Then the workforce’s house within the Czech Republic, the place they have been coaching previous to leaving for Italy, was robbed on Feb. 7. Edelman stated hundreds of {dollars} in private belongings, together with passports, have been stolen.
All through the method, Edelman stated the wave of help, notably from American Jews, has been “pleasantly shocking” — particularly in comparison with the response after he certified in 2018, which he referred to as extra of a “blip.”
That help has manifested by donations and merchandise gross sales, with Edelman fundraising to help the workforce’s Olympic prices. There has additionally been ample information and social media protection, contained in the Jewish and Israeli communities and out. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has given the workforce a shoutout, too.
Edelman stated the constructive response has been all of the validation he wanted.
“There was a relentless query of, on the finish of the street, you’re doing this for a purpose, proper?” he stated. “ And the one purpose to do that is for the purpose, the purpose of creating a change. Of individuals caring about sport. Of being the change. So if the change doesn’t come and it doesn’t make an influence, then all of it’s irrelevant… I believe that, from what we’ve seen within the final [several weeks], the reply is an unequivocal sure. It was 100% value it.”
In Israel, sports activities followers are happy with the historic nature of the bobsled workforce’s Olympic look, however the story has not damaged by to the identical extent, in accordance with David Wiseman, who lives in Jerusalem and runs the favored “Comply with Group Israel” Fb web page that tracks Israeli sports activities.
“The media are very soccer [soccer] and basketball-centric, so that they get all of the headlines,” Wiseman stated. “Somebody like Deni Avdija will get considerably extra protection. They know of him being the primary Israeli to play within the [NBA] All-Star sport much more so than this. They assume it’s cool that [Edelman] made it, however they don’t commit any extra thought to it. Unbiased of Israel, bobsled is a distinct segment, area of interest sport.”
Nonetheless, Edelman and a few of his supporters have seized on the narrative draw of Israel’s underdog bobsled story — to not point out the house break-in and different obstacles — to amplify an virtually muscular type of pro-Israel advocacy. Edelman generally makes use of the phrase “victors, not victims,” in reference to his workforce and to Israel’s spirit extra broadly.
Jared Firestone, who’s representing Israel in skeleton in Italy, stated there was “no probability I’d be right here with out AJ’s steering.” Edelman helped coach Firestone in skeleton after he made aliyah in 2019, and the pair co-founded the nonprofit Advancing Jewish Athletes to help different Jews in sports activities.
“I believe it means a lot to Israelis and to the Jewish group at giant to see, with just a little funding, how a lot could be completed,” Firestone stated. “Sadly for me and AJ, we’ve needed to dedicate a lot of our time that would’ve gone to coaching and progressing on the ice to fundraising, however hopefully we’ll be inspiring individuals who might assist to create that infrastructure so the following AJ and Jared might simply deal with sport and being even higher than we’re.”
Balsam, who additionally serves as a director of Advancing Jewish Athletes, stated it’s exhausting to articulate how significant Edelman’s achievement of creating the Olympics is to him, and to her.
“AJ has been very, very keen about making an attempt to domesticate the concept sports activities is usually a profession path for Jewish children,” she stated. “He needed to make it to the Olympics. He needed to indicate that that is potential. So for him to mix each of his passions and obtain his dream, I believe is one thing that he can’t put into phrases, that I can’t put into phrases, but it surely’s simply immense satisfaction.”
Now comes the precise match. Israel will compete within the two-man races on Feb. 16 and 17 and in four-man on Feb. 21 and 22, with Edelman piloting the sleds. His Shiba Inu Lulu, the workforce’s mascot, is staying with Balsam in New York, the place they’ll be cheering him on.
However regardless of the place Israel locations, Edelman has yet one more field to test to completely accomplish his mission to alter Israeli sports activities.
“There may be one factor that I want past something, and it’s that I’m not the one one to do it,” he stated. “ What I actually needed to perform by it was that another person noticed it and determined to do it themselves. That they noticed that pathway opened by somebody who was lower than stellar, who was not, like, a God-gifted athlete, and went, ‘You recognize what? I’m fairly good at what I do. I can do this.’
“It’s important to depart it higher than you discovered it, and it must be for a goal, and that goal is all the time going to be to encourage somebody to do it higher than you probably did.”
