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Adam Edelman

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Adam (AJ) Edelman
File:AJ Edelman at the 2016 World Championships.jpg
Personal information
Native name
אדם אדלמן
Nickname
Hebrew Hammer
National teamIsrael Olympic Skeleton Team
Born (1991-03-14) March 14, 1991 (age 34)
EducationMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (2014, Mechanical Engineering)
Years active2014-present
Height70 in (178 cm)
WebsiteIsraelSkeleton.com
Sport
CountryIsrael
SportOlympic Skeleton
Achievements and titles
National finalsChampion, 2014-18

Adam (AJ) Edelman (born March 14, 1991) is a four-time Israeli National Champion in the skeleton event, and Israel's representative at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang.[1][2]

Edelman holds Israeli track records on almost every track he has raced on, and competed in two World Championships for Israel (2016, 2017). He is Israel's most decorated slider, with two international medals in competition.

Personal life and education

Edelman was raised in a Zionist, Modern Orthodox home to parents Cheryl (a lawyer) and Elazer Edelman (notable biomedical engineer, physician, professor, and inventor).[3] He is the middle of three boys. His older brother is award-winning comedian Alex Edelman, and his younger brother is Austin. He went to Israel in 2006 with a program similar to Birthright.[3]

He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, class of 2014, Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in management applications.[4][5] He spent the year after graduation in Beit Shemesh, Israel, studying at a yeshiva.[3]

Edelman is nicknamed the "Hebrew Hammer", a reference to the title character in the movie The Hebrew Hammer.[5]

Sports career

Hockey

A native of Brookline, Massachusetts, Edelman's first sport was ice hockey, which he began playing at age three, as a goaltender.[4][3] He continued to play hockey through high school for the Brookline Warriors hockey team, at one point turning down opportunities to play at prep schools and remaining at his Jewish day school, Maimonides.[6]

Edelman continued to play as a goaltender through his tenure at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as the first Sabbath-observant player in the team's history.[4][5] He helped the Engineers win two divisional championships in the NECHA Division II league.

He graduated MIT with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.[4] Edelman was then hired by Oracle as a product manager, at their headquarters in Redwood Shores, California.[4] In 2016, he became an Israeli citizen.[3]

Bodybuilding

Edelman briefly competed as a drug-free bodybuilder for a year, placing in two categories at the 2014 Annapolis Drug Free Bodybuilding Championships in Annapolis, Maryland.[4]

Skeleton career

With an eye on making aliyah (migration to Israel), Edelman focused his efforts on accomplishing something in the realm of Israeli sports with meaningful inspirational potential, with a goal of using his journey to launch a foundation to foster more sports participation in the Israeli and Jewish communities. After discovering skeleton he decided to focus on making the 2022 Olympic Games, while training part-time. After being told that it would be impossible to accomplish an Olympic journey in four years (in time for the 2018 Olympic Games), Edelman shifted his focus towards proving that it could in fact be done, and departed Oracle to train full-time.[7] Over the next two seasons he set Israeli track records at every track he competed at, with the exception of the Whistler track.

Treating his mission as one of critical importance, Edelman trained non-stop, watching World Cup videos during his rest time to create neuropathways that would develop his driving skill.[8] According to an interview with the Israeli state media channel GPO, Edelman would ensure to be at a skeleton track every Christmas and New-Years Day, explaining that "if you are not training on Christmas, your competitors will be... there is not a day that I went to sleep without doing something to better myself in my sport... I have a responsibility as a national athlete to not rest until I achieve a result for the state (Israel) that she can be proud of."[9]

Edelman's mission is Israel-centric, and every race prior to taking a run he repeats a mantra: "for myself, for my country, for my people".[10] He does his physical training between seasons on the ice at the Zinman College of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the Wingate Institute, in Netanya, Israel.[3]

He has won four Israeli National Titles.[5]

In 2016 he came in 33rd in the World Championships, and in 2017 he came in 35th.[4]

Edelman won two medals in international competition for Israel, both in Lake Placid in the 2018 North American Cup competitions.[11]

References

  1. ^ "Blue-and-white delegation Pyeongchang reaches 10 athletes". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2018-01-21.
  2. ^ "הוועד האולימפי בישראל". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Trained on YouTube, a Bostonian will be Israel's first Olympian to compete in the games' most dangerous sport," Haaretz.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Skeleton | "Athlete Profile: Adam EDELMAN - Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games"
  5. ^ a b c d "AJ Edelman ’14 to represent Israel at the 2018 Winter Olympics; Former member of Engineers Hockey will compete in skeleton at the Olympics in South Korea," The Tech.
  6. ^ "AJ Edelman, Israel National Skeleton Athlete"
  7. ^ "Pyeongchang 2018: A Jewish Viewing Guide, Part II," JewishBoston.
  8. ^ "With 'a lot of chutzpah,' Israeli slider somehow found Pyeongchang" | The Times of Israel
  9. ^ yovel GPO (2018-01-25), אדם אדלמן שליח Skeleton Athlete, retrieved 2018-01-26
  10. ^ "AJ Edelman-Israeli National Skeleton Athlete אדם אדלמן". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-01-26.
  11. ^ "IBSF | Athletes". www.ibsf.org. Retrieved 2018-01-22.
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