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Imago

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Imago

The Milan Olympics saw Israel’s four-man bobsled team absent from the starting line. The team ended their run with a disqualification over a fabricated illness from their Olympian. The incident didn’t sit well with the country’s Olympic Committee, which decided to completely stop them from competing. And it led to a massive controversy.

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On X, responding to a fan, Olympian AJ Edelman wrote, “I make no apologies for the decision. At all. The switch is not only common in our sport, we did it believing it was good for the country and to honor our teammate.”

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The squad wanted to include Ward Fawarseh, who would have become the first Druze Israeli to compete in the Winter Games for the third heat. However, Edelman confirmed that there was no ethical breach involved.

He added, “We thought we were putting country first. The end effect was not intended but I am proud of the team’s consensus in that moment. 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.”

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This sentiment carried the fear lurking beneath the controversy, as the original fan statement read, “Thanks dude. If you think Israeli Olympic Committee was reluctant not sending athletes to Olympics before…(although they definitely deserved it) wait what they’ll do from now on. So not only yall embarrassed yourselves but also put future athletes and delegations in jeopardy.”

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The Olympic Committee of Israel made it very clear that the Olympian had declared himself unwell, submitted to examination, and signed legal documentation to support the substitution request. However, when he admitted that the claim was untrue, the committee had no choice but to act.

“The Olympic Committee of Israel views any deviation from the Olympic values as unacceptable and cannot accept inappropriate behavior,” they wrote in a statement, as reported by ESPN.

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Israel’s first Olympic bobsled team made history simply by arriving in Cortina, but they left with their final run that never took place and were shrouded in controversy. However, the gold medal game at the Milan Olympics was just fascinating.

The Germans dominated the Milan Olympics

The four-man bobsled podium at the Milan Olympics delivered a sight to behold. Germany’s Johannes Lochner, who had announced his retirement months earlier, piloted his team, which included Thorsten Margis, Jorn Wenzel, and Georg Fleischhauer, to a four-run total time of 3 minutes, 37.57 seconds, defeating two-time defending Olympic champion Francesco Friedrich by 0.57 seconds.

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Friedrich settled for silver with a time of 3:38.14, his second silver of these Games after dominating the previous two Olympics. The bronze medal went to Switzerland’s Michael Vogt, who delivered a dramatic final run to overtake Germany’s Adam Ammour by a mere four-hundredths of a second, finishing in 3:38.64 to Ammour’s 3:38.68.

The result extended Germany’s astonishing dominance in the sport, as the nation collected eight of the twelve bobsled medals awarded in Cortina.

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