Adam Edelman

Adam Jeremy "A. J." Edelman (; born March 14, 1991) is an American-born Israeli sliding sports athlete. He is the first Israeli to qualify for the Olympics in two different sports, and the first Orthodox Jew to compete in the Winter Olympics.

Biography Edelman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish home by parents Cheryl (a lawyer) and Elazer Edelman (an engineer, scientist, and cardiologist). He is the middle of three boys. His older brother is comedian Alex Edelman who helped found Off the Wall Comedy in Jerusalem. He is a dual American-Israeli citizen. He was a member of the MIT Men's hockey team and a staff editorial columnist for the MIT newspaper, The Tech.

Edelman immigrated to Israel in 2016 and trained at Wingate Institute. He is an MBA candidate at the Yale School of Management.

Edelman is nicknamed the "Hebrew Hammer." placing in a top-3 medal finish at the 2014 NGA Annapolis Bodybuilding Championships.

Olympic sliding sports

Skeleton Edelman tried skeleton for the first time at the Olympic facilities in Lake Placid, NY in March 2014 where he was given an assessment that he would never be competitive. The Israeli team was similarly told that Edelman would "get down the track but that’ll be the most of it." Nevertheless, Edelman set out a goal of qualifying for the 2022 Olympics. He reinforced his learning of the sport by watching nearly 12 hours of YouTube video daily.

In his first race at the 2014 North American Cup, Edelman finished 18.64 seconds behind the race winner, and after hearing another athlete indicate that given his poor performance Edelman would quit within 2 years, decided to focus on making the 2018 Olympics, rather than 2022. In the 2018 Olympic qualification season, Edelman had cut this deficit to 1.19 seconds, placing ninth.

In 2016, he decided to quit the sport and return to work, but changed his mind at the last minute and decided to train full-time, resigning from his job as a product manager at Oracle.

Edelman competed in two World Championships for Israel,

In the two-man bobsleigh competition, Edelman's team placed last out of 26 teams. RTS later said of Renna's commentary, "Although this is factual information, it is inappropriate in the context of a sports commentary because it is too detailed", and removed the segment from public availability.

Awards Edelman is a recipient of Jew in the City's Orthodox Jewish All Star award. He was named a 2021 European Forbes 30 Under 30 in the Sports and Games category for his efforts of using his platform to campaign against bullying and increase LGBTQ participation in sport.