Bobsleigh 2020 - 2021 Discussion Thread

[Agger 1,663]

Denmark has hereby officially announced a national bobsleigh team aiming for the 2026 Winter Olympics!

6 athletes on the team with triple jumper Jannick Bagge as pilot.

They'll be part of the ISBF Development programme with Bagge scheduled to go through pilot training and the hope that they'll be starting in 2 Europe Cup competitions this winter.

 

[intoronto 5,644]

Very interesting:

 

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1097768/frederick-loomis-antigua-winter-olympics

 

 

[dcro 10,210]

Her chance is virtually non-existent, sadly. Maybe if she were a pure sprinter. But a high jumper? No way.

[Olympian1010 7,976]

I had a short, but informative, conversation with the pilot of the Israeli Bobsleigh Team today. He’s also the skeleton athlete that represented them at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
 

He shared an article to Reddit about the Israeli team’s goals for the next couple of years. They’re aiming for 4-man qualification at Beijing 2022, and then for a medal in 2026. Apparently the federation has found a strong sponsor that is willing to support them. It sounds like he (and others) are trying to organize Israel into a legitimate and competitive sliding program. 
 

He also gave me a little bit of backstory on himself. He learned to slide through YouTube. I feel like I learn about more and more athletes who learned their sports through YouTube. Definitely one of the positive sides of social media and technology is that sports of have become more accessible for athletes around the world.

 

He also told me a little about the 4-man team. The team has quite a unique ethnic, religious, and sexuality makeup. The pilot (AJ) is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and is member of the Jewish faith. His crew are all Druze Arabs. 
 

I just thought that was interesting enough to share on here. 

[Col_Frost 179]

7 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

I had a short, but informative, conversation with the pilot of the Israeli Bobsleigh Team today. He’s also the skeleton athlete that represented them at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

After such introduction you could share his name as well cause it's not a big secret now  

 

7 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

He shared an article to Reddit about the Israeli team’s goals for the next couple of years. They’re aiming for 4-man qualification at Beijing 2022, and then for a medal in 2026. Apparently the federation has found a strong sponsor that is willing to support them. It sounds like he (and others) are trying to organize Israel into a legitimate and competitive sliding program. 

Very ambitious plans for a nation that never participated even in World Cup. With qualification for Beijing there shouldn't be a problem I believe. They traditional competing in North America Cup and it's easier there to get points than in Europe Cup. But medal? Even if Edelman (or someone else) turn out to be a very talented driver what with rest of the team? Does Israel have some talented sprinters to join them into bobsleigh program? Or maybe they are planning "shopping" in another country?  I wish them the best (unless they actually do this "shopping" thing) cause it's another nation in this sport that I love to watch but they should have a very big stack of money and start a really wide ranging program to make a way from nothing to a medal in only six years.

[NearPup 3,051]

24 minutes ago, Col_Frost said:

After such introduction you could share his name as well cause it's not a big secret now  

 

Very ambitious plans for a nation that never participated even in World Cup. With qualification for Beijing there shouldn't be a problem I believe. They traditional competing in North America Cup and it's easier there to get points than in Europe Cup. But medal? Even if Edelman (or someone else) turn out to be a very talented driver what with rest of the team? Does Israel have some talented sprinters to join them into bobsleigh program? Or maybe they are planning "shopping" in another country?  I wish them the best (unless they actually do this "shopping" thing) cause it's another nation in this sport that I love to watch but they should have a very big stack of money and start a really wide ranging program to make a way from nothing to a medal in only six years.

Israel doesn’t have to shop around, they can just find people who are eligible for citizenship through the law of return.

[Col_Frost 179]

11 minutes ago, NearPup said:

Israel doesn’t have to shop around, they can just find people who are eligible for citizenship through the law of return.

So "shopping" it is  

[Grassmarket 3,409]

39 minutes ago, NearPup said:

Israel doesn’t have to shop around, they can just find people who are eligible for citizenship through the law of return.

Doesn’t always work out though.  They’ve got lots of Ethiopian-Jewish marathon runners.  They’re all terrible! 

[NearPup 3,051]

8 hours ago, Grassmarket said:

Doesn’t always work out though.  They’ve got lots of Ethiopian-Jewish marathon runners.  They’re all terrible! 

There are (were, most are in Israel now) quite a few Jewish Ethiopians. About 2% of Israel’s population has recent Ethiopian ancestry. 

[Dnl 691]

On 10/09/2020 at 10:32, Col_Frost said:

So "shopping" it is  

The law of return is very strict and is not allow any "shopping" to happen every person who is elgible for citezenship due to the law has allawys been the passed in 1950 and the purpose of it is to encourge jews to make "alliyah" and settle in Israel, this law has nothing to do with sport and again if you heard about athleat who represnt Israel and he is not based in Israel, this is the reason, i can asure you that the country is not buying nor importing athleats in exchange of money.