Sports
Israeli Olympic bobsled captain doubles down on loyalty to country after broadcaster condemned his team for it
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Team Israel Olympic bobsled captain AJ Edelman has accomplished a life mission — leading the first ever Israeli bobsled team to the reach the Olympics.
He had to sacrifice millions in Bitcoin to get his team to Milan Cortina, then had to live off smoked salmon and pizza for two weeks when he got there.
It wasn’t even the best pizza that he’s had. He prefers Chicago deep dish.
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And the whole team had to take some arrows throughout the process. The hotel Edelman’s team was saying at was burglarized days before the competition began.
Then, when they finally made it onto the track, a broadcaster went on a politically charged tirade against the team while it competed. The broadcaster referenced the military service of several athletes on the team.
“Edelman, a first-time Olympian and self-described ‘Zionist to the core,’ who has posted several messages on social media in support of the genocide in Gaza,” RTS presenter Stefan Renna said during the team’s heat in the men’s two-man bobsled Olympic competition on Feb. 16.
“This raises the question of his presence in Cortina during these games, since the [International Olympic Committee] had indicated that athletes who have — and I quote — ‘actively supported the war by participating in pro-war events, being militarily engaged, or via their activities on their social media networks’ were not eligible to participate.”
The entire broadcast was later removed from the RTS website. But millions had already found out about it, including Edelman and his teammates.
“This individual clearly pre-wrote a diatribe timed to two minutes, you know, the entirety of our run. I just think it’s so sad, I don’t know how you can live like that,” he said.
“On a personal level, I’ve dealt with so much worse. I said those things. I said I’m a Zionist, I said I’m proud of Ward [Fawarseh], who served. I said that. I said what I said. I believe Israel is just. I believe it’s a force for good. I stand for that force for good. I represent that force for good. So when someone just says that I represent evil or I am evil for representing what I represent, it’s like water off the back.”
Multiple members of the Israeli team served in the nation’s military. Some of them were deployed to Gaza to fight Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
“Israelis are Israelis. What they do in the service of the country is always going to define who they are,” Edelman said.
“We view ourselves right now entirely as athletes… I can say that as athletes, as men, as humans and Israelis, I’m very proud of their accomplishments on the Olympic stage.”
The team finished 26th in the two-man bobsled competition, falling short of Edelman’s pre-Olympic goal of making the top 20. Germany won 10 of all 12 bobsled medals and all eight golds and silvers in Milan Cortina. The team was then disqualified by the Israel Olympic Federation after one of its athletes lied to Olympic officials about an illness so the team could make a substitution. The team did not make it to the last day of the games.
Prior to that, Edelman celebrated the accomplishment due to its historic symbolism and the adversity it took to get there.
Israel’s Adam Edelman, left, and Menachem Chen celebrate at the end of a two-man bobsled run at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, on Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
The team came just 0.01 seconds shy of making the Beijing Games four years ago. Then many of the team’s athletes were called to war after Oct. 7 the following year.
For Edelman, just ensuring the team existed at that point was anything but certain.
They came all the way back to qualify for Milan Cortina in what was, one way or another, Edelman’s last attempt at the Olympics.
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But they couldn’t even make it to Milan Cortina before adversity struck.
En route to Italy, the team was staying at a hotel in Prague, Czech Republic. As captain, Edelman traveled ahead to Venice, and that’s when he found out his team’s hotel in Prague had been burglarized and vandalized.
“It was just another Tuesday for us,” Edelman said.
“We’ve been turned away from staying from places in Germany because it was Christmas Eve and they saw that we’re Jewish. Another athlete who is competing in the Games this time actually said that he wouldn’t ever compete on this team because Israel is a bunch of ‘baby killers.’ A swastika was drawn on our team van.”
They moved past the burglary to put their best foot forward once the competition began.
The reward came when fan mail from Israel started flowing in. It reminded Edelman and his teammates why they did this. They wanted to inspire their countrymen, especially the next generation, to achieve unlikely feats.
“The reception of the team has been overwhelming,” Edelman said. “They’re putting their hopes and their dreams into your journey, and that’s just something very special. When they think back on it, they probably won’t remember you, they probably won’t remember you at all, but they’ll remember the country was represented.”
In the final days of the games, as Edelman came to the end of his journey of more than a decade, he reflected on it all.
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Israel’s Adam Edelman, left, and Menachem Chen arrive at the finish during a two-man bobsled run at the Winter Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
“I still haven’t processed really being here,” Edelman said. “I don’t know what it will look like when all that is said and done….
“I’ve woken up every day for the last 12 years and went to bed every night for the last 12 years with a goal in mind, and with a determination to get this thing done. Now that I will have realized that it is done, I don’t know exactly how that will look like. I think in some sense I’m worried, in some sense I’m excited.”
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Pakistan made a sizzling start to their Fifa Series campaign with a record-breaking 8-0 victory over the Turks and Caicos Islands at the Stade Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan on Thursday.
Four goals by four different scorers in the first half set the tone for Adeel Rizki’s side before two more players got their names on the scoresheet as Pakistan surpassed their previous-best victory — 7-0 against the Maldives in September 2022.
Pakistan made their attacking intent clear from the very beginning when Mariam Mahmood, fresh from winning the Welsh league title with Wrexham Women, struck the side netting with a shot from an acute angle inside the first four minutes.
After Nadia Khan tested Turks and Caicos goalkeeper Archenie Desir with a shot from long range, Pakistan opened the scoring in the 10th minute with Zahmena Malik finding the back of the net.
It was 2-0 two minutes later, Aqsa Mushtaq slotting in after a rebound after Mariam had forced a save from Desir.
Pakistan continued to press with midfield metronome Layla Banaras showing her quality when she made it 3-0 with a weaving run and smart finish just past the half-hour mark.
In a game where Pakistan had pinned their opponents in the opposing half for almost the entirety of the match, Mariam got on the scoresheet in the 38th when she expertly volleyed in a cross at the back post.
Pakistan continued in the same vein in the second half, Nadia planting a perfect header to a cross from the left in the 56th to make it 5-0.
Aqsa scored a pearler to make it 6-0 in the 76th before Layla also got her second with a perfectly-placed shot from outside the box. Isra Khan’s goal in the 81st completed the record-breaking triumph.
PFF president Mohsen Gilani hailed the historic win. “I congratulate the players and the coaching staff for creating history. This is the start of a new era for women’s football in Pakistan and I hope the team continues in the same vein in the Fifa series.”
The Big Ten Conference amassed nearly $70 million from NCAA distributions that will be paid for team appearances and performances in the 2026 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
That is by far the most among conferences, largely because the Big Ten swept the national championships — Michigan won the men’s and UCLA the women’s — and had Illinois‘ men’s team advance to the Final Four.
The NCAA, which has multibillion-dollar broadcast deals for the two tournaments, since 1991 has rewarded conferences for their number of tournament bids and how far those teams advance in the men’s tournament. A similar system for the women’s tournament began in 2025.
For this year’s tournaments, nine men’s teams and 12 women’s teams from the Big Ten combined to make at least $69.4 million, with $63 million coming from the men’s side.
The Southeastern Conference, which had 10 teams in each tournament, totaled at least $56.2 million ($50.4 million for men, $5.8 million for women). Other distributions will total at least $42.9 million for the Big 12, $34.2 million for the Atlantic Coast Conference and $22.2 million for the Big East.
The NCAA sends payments directly to the conferences, which distribute the money among their teams according to their policies. Payments for the 2026 tournament will begin in April 2027.
Teams in each tournament earn what’s known as a “unit” for making the field of 68 and an additional unit for each round in which it appears. The national champion is awarded an extra unit. The value of a unit increases each year. A portion of revenue from the tournaments’ broadcast agreements are directed to distribution payments — 24% for the men and 41% for the women.
The estimated value of a unit for the 2026 men’s tournament will be about $350,000, an NCAA spokeswoman said, and that amount will be paid annually for six years. A single unit earned in 2026 would have a total value of at least $2.1 million over those six years and probably more because Division I distribution funds — including the basketball funds — are scheduled to increase each year, typically by 2.9%.
For the women’s tournament, full funding for units earned will be achieved in 2027. Payments for each unit earned will be made for three years rather than six. The unit value was $75,000 for 2026 and will decrease to about $63,000 next year as part of the NCAA’s formula for getting the fund fully up and running. Using $63,000 as an estimate for the 2028 value, a single unit earned in 2026 would be worth at least $201,000 by the time it is paid off over three years.
The Big Ten’s nine teams in the men’s tournament appeared in 29 games. Michigan earned $14.7 million for the conference by playing in six games and receiving a seventh unit for winning the championship. Illinois earned five units for making the Final Four ($10.5 million) and Iowa and Purdue four apiece for reaching the Elite Eight ($8.4 million each).
The Big Ten landed 12 teams in the women’s tournament, and they combined to play in 31 games. UCLA earned just over $1.4 million by playing in six games and receiving an extra unit for winning the championship. Michigan‘s four games earned $804,000 and Minnesota‘s three earned $603,000.
The championships in men’s and women’s basketball continued what has been a banner 2025-26 for the Big Ten. Indiana won the conference’s third straight College Football Playoff, and other national championships have been won in men’s wrestling (Penn State), women’s ice hockey (Wisconsin), men’s water polo (UCLA), men’s soccer (Washington) and field hockey (Northwestern).
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Super Bowl champion LeSean McCoy took to the defense of New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and New York Times/The Athletic NFL reporter Dianna Russini.
Photos originally published by the New York Post’s Page Six showed the coach and journalist holding hands, hugging and sitting in a pool in bathing suits at a resort bungalow in Sedona, Arizona. While a lot of people have been highly critical of Vrabel and Russini, McCoy took no issue with it.
“I like Mike, I love Mike. I mind my business. They work together,” McCoy told TMZ Sports.
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Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back LeSean McCoy runs with the football against the Kansas City Chiefs during Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, on Feb. 7, 2021. (Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports)
“Everybody makes something big out of everything. He’s a big-time coach, he’s a big-time player. He was just in the Super Bowl, they got something to talk about. That’s what happened.”
“I ain’t see nothing wrong with it.”
Both Vrabel and Russini are married, and both denied any wrongdoing. Vrabel married his wife, Jen, in 1999, and they have two sons together. The 50-year-old coach said the interaction was completely innocent.
“These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable,” Vrabel told the New York Post. “This doesn’t deserve any further response.”
New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel watches during the first half of the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Russini, who married her husband Kevin Goldschmidt in 2020 and they have two sons together, said the photos misrepresented what actually occurred.
“The photos don’t represent the group of six people who were hanging out during the day. Like most journalists in the NFL, reporters interact with sources away from stadiums and other venues,” Russini told the New York Post.
Vrabel took the Patriots to the Super Bowl in his first season as the Patriots head coach and won NFL Coach of the Year for the second time in his career.
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Dianna Russini attends the 2026 Fanatics Super Bowl Party at Pier 48 in San Francisco, California, on Feb. 7, 2026. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)
Russini, 43, joined the The Athletic in 2023, leaving ESPN after over eight years.
McCoy played 12 seasons in the NFL. He spent six with the Philadelphia Eagles, four seasons with the Buffalo Bills, one with the Kansas City Chiefs, and one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The 37-year-old won a Super Bowl with the Chiefs in 2019 and the Buccaneers in 2020. In 170 games, McCoy ran for 11,102 yards with 73 touchdowns, while catching 518 passes for 3,898 yards and 16 touchdowns.
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