An Israeli bobsled pilot says the apartment that he and some fellow Olympians have been using while finishing their training for the Milan Cortina Winter Games was robbed Saturday, with passports and “thousands of dollars” worth of other items among what was taken.
Some members of the team still have not arrived in Italy for the Olympics yet and aren’t expected to leave their training base — the location of which the team did not disclose — until this coming week.
AJ Edelman, a former Olympic skeleton athlete who is now the driver for the Israeli bobsled team, said in a series of social media posts that the squad continued training Saturday even after police opened an investigation.
Edelman said how the team handled the day “is just such a fine example of how we push forward in difficult circumstances,” he wrote on X. “Such a gross violation — suitcases, shoes, equipment, passports stolen, and the boys headed right back to training today. I really believe this team exemplifies the Israeli Spirit.”
The Israeli Olympic Committee did not have any immediate comment. Israel is competing in bobsled at the Olympics for the first time, qualifying for the games after Britain decided not to take one of its two allocated spots for Milan Cortina. Israel was next in line and accepted the offer to compete when the last Olympic slots opened.
When reached by the AP, Edelman said he was in Italy, not at the site of the robbery. He said team coach Itamar Shprinz, an Israeli cross-fit athlete, was there, but it was not clear whether Shprinz actually witnessed the robbery or was nearby when it occurred.
Israel plans to compete at the Olympics in both two- and four-man, with Edelman driving both sleds. He’s expected to be pushed by Menachem Chen in the two-man race, with Ward Fawarseh and Omer Katz listed as the athletes joining him for four-man.
Official bobsled training in Cortina d’Ampezzo begins on Thursday.
Edelman — who raced in the head-first sliding sport of skeleton at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games — is believed to be the first Orthodox Jew to ever compete in a Winter Games. Farwaseh will likely to be the first Druze Olympian.
Their Olympic participation comes at a time when Israel’s presence in international sports has been met with boycotts, bans and backlash over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 71,800 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, and devastated the strip.
