Switzerland’s French-language public broadcaster has removed an Olympic bobsleigh clip from its website after a journalist’s on-air commentary questioned the participation of an Israeli athlete at the Milano Cortina Winter Games and sparked a fierce reaction online and from public figures.
The footage, which accompanied one of the runs by Israel’s two-man sled featuring pilot AJ Edelman and brake-man Menachem Chen, included a two-minute segment in which the commentator referenced and quoted past social media posts attributed to Edelman and raised the issue of whether he should be competing given those views. The remarks were broadcast during the event in Cortina d’Ampezzo and later circulated widely on social media, prompting accusations that the commentary crossed the line from reporting into political editorialising during live sport.
In a statement issued the following day, the broadcaster, Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), said its journalist’s intention had been to interrogate the International Olympic Committee’s approach to athlete eligibility in cases involving public statements about armed conflict. RTS said the segment relied on “factual” information but conceded it did not belong in that format. “However, such information, while factual, is inappropriate within a sports commentary due to its length,” RTS said. “For that reason, we removed the clip (Monday) night from our website.”
The controversy unfolded against the backdrop of intense global scrutiny of Israel’s participation in international sport during the Gaza war and wider debates over how sporting bodies apply neutrality rules. According to the Associated Press, the commentator compared the situation to eligibility restrictions placed on Russian athletes in recent years, noting International Olympic Committee guidance that Russian competitors must not have publicly supported the war in Ukraine.
During the RTS commentary, the journalist also referred to a report commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council which concluded last year that Israel committed genocide, a finding Israel has disputed. The inclusion of that claim, delivered over race footage and in the middle of Olympic competition, became one of the focal points of criticism as clips spread online.
The IOC responded cautiously when asked about the incident, directing attention back to the broadcaster. “It is not a question for us at this stage,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said on Tuesday, according to AP, when asked about the commentary and its removal.
Edelman, a Boston-born athlete who has competed for Israel in sliding sports before, answered the controversy on social media late on Monday, after completing his first heats in the two-man competition. Edelman wrote a post framing Israel’s Olympic bobsleigh appearance as a breakthrough achieved without the resources typical of established sliding nations. “No coach with us. No big program. Just a dream, grit, and unyielding pride in who we represent,” he wrote.
He also pushed back directly on the premise of the commentary, writing: “Working together towards an incredible goal and crushing it. Because that’s what Israelis do. I don’t think it’s possible to witness that and give any credence to the commentary.”
The moment came during a milestone competition for Israel in Winter Olympic history. Edelman and Chen were competing in Israel’s Olympic debut in bobsleigh, a programme Edelman has described as “Shul Runnings”, a play on the 1993 film “Cool Runnings” and a nod to Jewish identity.
On the track, the Israeli sled’s results were modest but the team publicly framed the appearance as a victory in itself. In a separate report from Cortina d’Ampezzo, AP said the Israelis sat last in the 26-sled field at halfway in the event but were “thrilled” by the achievement of simply making the Olympic start line. “We are victors,” Edelman said. “Not victims.”
Edelman’s path to the Winter Games has been unusual even by Olympic standards. In a longer profile of the team and its origins, AP reported that Edelman is an American-Israeli from Massachusetts who previously competed for Israel in skeleton at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, and described himself as defying long odds to reach the sport. In that account, Edelman recalled being told by a skeleton scout that he was “no Tom Brady,” and later built his own route into elite sliding through training and self-funded effort.
That same profile described how Edelman sought to create an Israeli bobsled programme by recruiting athletes from other sports, and how the group was reshaped after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. AP reported that Hamas killed around 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages, and that Israel’s military response has devastated Gaza, with the territory’s health ministry reporting more than 71,800 Palestinians killed. Against that context, the team said it aimed to act as role models for young Israeli athletes and lay groundwork for the future.
The AP report also described the Israeli bobsled project as a small and diverse group, noting Edelman’s belief he may be the first Orthodox Jew to compete at a Winter Games, and reporting that other members of the wider Israeli bobsled set-up include athletes from different backgrounds and sporting codes. Edelman told AP he believes Israel can become competitive in the sport over time. “I used to be at the bottom of the pack athletically, and I made it here to the Olympics, so there must be some self-selection process,” he said. “I’m very sure that with this program now, with the infrastructure that has been set up, Israel will become a force in bobsled.”
The RTS controversy quickly drew in political voices from outside sport. AP reported that the commentary was described as “beyond disgusting” by the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, in a social media post. The intensity of the reaction underlined how the Olympics, even in winter sports far from the usual geopolitical spotlight, are increasingly entangled with wider arguments about war, speech, and whether sporting platforms should address them at all.
For RTS, the incident landed uncomfortably close to the IOC’s home ground. The network is based in Switzerland and serves the French-speaking public in a country that hosts the IOC headquarters in Lausanne. That proximity, and Switzerland’s long-standing association with international sports governance, helped amplify attention on how Olympic broadcasters balance live reporting with editorial judgement when sensitive political issues intersect with sport.
Edelman, meanwhile, was due to return to the track to continue the two-man competition and is also scheduled to pilot Israel’s four-man sled later in the Games, AP reported. The Israeli team’s debut has already made it a story beyond medals, and the broadcaster’s decision to remove the clip suggests officials are aware of the risks of allowing political commentary to dominate live coverage of Olympic events.
