NEED TO KNOW

• Israel’s own Olympic committee disqualified its historic first bobsled team after an athlete faked illness to swap in a Druze alternate
• Captain AJ Edelman initially apologized, then reversed course and blamed the replaced athlete’s mother for reporting the scheme
• The disqualification capped a turbulent Games that included a Prague burglary, a Swiss broadcaster’s on-air political tirade and an Italian hot-mic incident

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, ITALY (TDR) — The Olympic Committee of Israel disqualified its own four-man bobsled team from the final day of competition at the 2026 Winter Olympics on Sunday after discovering that team member Uri Zisman faked an illness to let alternate Ward Fawarseh — who would have become Israel’s first Druze Olympian — take his place on the sled.

The decision ended an unlikely Olympic journey that had already survived a training camp robbery, antisemitic vandalism and two separate broadcasting controversies — only for the team to undermine itself from within.

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How the Scheme Unraveled

Under Olympic bobsled rules, substitutions are permitted only when an athlete is genuinely injured or ill. After Saturday’s first two heats left Israel in 24th place out of 27 sleds — well outside the top-20 cutoff for the final heat — the team decided to swap Zisman for Fawarseh.

To make it happen, Zisman declared himself unwell, underwent a medical examination and signed an affidavit certifying he was unfit to race. But before the request reached international officials, Zisman confessed to delegation leadership that he had fabricated the illness.

“The bobsleigh team asked to include Ward, the substitute, in the competition. In order to make this possible, one of the team members — encouraged by his teammates — declared that he was unwell.” — Olympic Committee of Israel

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The committee called the conduct “improper” and said it violated fair play principles. The matter was referred to the International Olympic Committee for further review, with Israeli officials promising a thorough investigation after the team returns home.

Edelman’s Shifting Account

What followed the disqualification revealed a captain struggling to reconcile competing impulses — accountability and defiance.

AJ Edelman, the Massachusetts-born pilot who spent 12 years building Israel’s bobsled program, initially posted a measured statement on Instagram accepting responsibility.

“I apologize profusely for the disappointment. 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.” — AJ Edelman

Hours later, Edelman’s tone shifted sharply. In a follow-up post, he appeared to blame Zisman’s mother for alerting delegation officials to the scheme and said he stood by the decision entirely.

“I make no apologies for the decision. At all. It was only an issue because the mother of the athlete replaced was upset it was her child, not another athlete. The decision itself was not in question and I remain okay with it.” — AJ Edelman

David Greaves, president of the Israeli Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, offered a blunter assessment.

“I am deeply disappointed in the actions of the team.” — David Greaves

A Games Defined by Controversy

The disqualification was the final chapter in what had been one of the most scrutinized delegations at the Milan-Cortina Games.

On Feb. 7, the team’s training apartment in Prague was burglarized while members were at the track. Passports, suitcases, shoes and equipment worth thousands of dollars were stolen. Fawarseh’s passport was among the items taken, requiring an emergency replacement before the team could travel to Italy. Edelman also disclosed that a swastika had been drawn on the team van during European training and that a fellow competitor from another country called them “baby killers.”

Then came the broadcasting incidents. During the two-man event on Feb. 16, Swiss commentator Stefan Renna of RTS used Israel’s entire run to accuse Edelman of supporting genocide and question whether he should be allowed to compete — drawing comparisons to the IOC’s restrictions on Russian athletes who publicly supported the invasion of Ukraine. RTS later pulled the segment from its website, calling the commentary “factual” but “inappropriate due to its length within the context of a sports commentary.”

On Saturday — the same day as the faked illness — Italy’s RAI public broadcaster was caught on a hot mic before the four-man heats. Viewers heard a commentator say: “Let’s avoid crew 21, which is Israeli.” RAI Sport’s interim director Marco Lollobrigida issued an immediate apology, calling it an “unacceptable expression” and launching an internal review.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee had previously condemned the Swiss commentary as a “Jew-hating” attack, while Yael Arad, chairwoman of the Olympic Committee of Israel and an IOC member, defended the athletes’ right to compete while condemning the substitution scheme separately.

“Any attempt to link an Israeli athlete to genocide is wrong and improper. The fact that we are here and able to raise the Israeli flag is in itself the answer to all those who do not understand the Israeli and Jewish spirit.” — Yael Arad

The Druze Angle Both Sides Claimed

Supporters of the substitution framed it as an act of national unity — Jewish athletes sacrificing their own Olympic moment so a Druze teammate who served in the Israel Defense Forces could make history.

Edelman argued the swap reflected the team’s values. The team was already eliminated from medal contention, and Fawarseh had trained alongside the squad for years, earning his designation as an alternate through the same qualifying process.

Critics — including the Israeli Olympic Committee itself — countered that rules exist precisely for situations where intentions seem noble. Faking a medical certificate is fraud regardless of motive, and the scheme risked international disciplinary consequences that could affect Israeli athletes in future competitions. The committee noted that the team’s conduct had been exemplary “up to this point” — language that drew a clear line between enduring external adversity with dignity and manufacturing an internal scandal.

The team nicknamed itself “Shul Runnings” — a Hebrew twist on the 1993 film about Jamaica’s improbable Olympic bobsled debut. Israel qualified for the Games only after Britain declined one of its two allocated spots, and the team missed the 2022 Beijing Olympics by one-hundredth of a second. Several members had their Olympic preparation interrupted when they were called up as IDF reservists after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.

When a team that survived external hostility at every turn ends its historic run through self-inflicted rule-breaking — and its captain shifts from taking responsibility to deflecting blame within hours — does the sympathetic motive behind the violation make the breach of Olympic standards more forgivable, or does it make the failure of judgment harder to defend?

Sources

This report was compiled using information from The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Forward, The National, Yahoo Sports, Fox News, Deadline, The Jewish Chronicle, JNS, The Algemeiner, GB News, Ynet News, and NBC New York.

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