A few years ago, Disney had a smash hit with the movie “Cool Runnings”, about Jamaica’s first bobsled team to qualify for the Olympics, in 1988.
Now it looks like Israel wants to follow suit.
The men hope their ambitious entry into winter sport will cheer the people of Israel, a country where snow is a rare and the newly formed Israeli Bobsled Federation was forced to invent a Hebrew word for bobsled: “mizhelet bob.”
The team members so far, David Greaves, Adam Zeff, and John Frank, are Americans or Canadians who are in the process of getting their Israeli citizenship. So it’s not as if they’ve never seen snow. Zeff and Frank are both expert skiers. John Frank is a former football player with two superbowl rings to his name. They’re serious athletes and this isn’t likely to be reminiscent of the Jamaican story.
They won’t be medal contenders even if they do make it to the Olympics, but the notion of Israel entering the bobsled race is pretty neat.