Skeleton Team Featured in Birthright NEXT

Skeleton athlete Bradley Chalupski was profiled by Birthright NEXT on their website, "Alef: The NEXT Conversation".  Full text of the article can be found here:

http://alefnext.com/jews-and-sports/an-israeli-winter-olympic-team-to-warm-the-jewish-soul/

The IBSF (www.israelibobsled.com) is a US-based not-for-profit corporation, based in Lake Placid, NY, with the mission of supporting Israel's national teams in the Olympic sliding sports of Bobsled and Skeleton.

Skeleton Team Featured in News Transcript (Central NJ)

Skeleton athlete Bradley Chalupski was profiled by the News Transcript (of Central NJ).  Full text of the article can be found here:

http://nt.gmnews.com/news/2011-02-23/Sports/Marlboro_grad_represents_Israel_in_skeleton_event.html

The IBSF (www.israelibobsled.com) is a US-based not-for-profit corporation, based in Lake Placid, NY, with the mission of supporting Israel's national teams in the Olympic sliding sports of Bobsled and Skeleton.

Pirates Eye On...Bradley Chalupski, J.D. '10

By Robert Mayers - Retrieved from http://www.shu.edu/news/article/329000

Bradley Chalupski, J.D. ’10 is going to be the first Israeli born athlete to compete at the Skeleton World Championships. The Pirate Press sat down with Bradley to ask him about the unique sport of Skeleton and how he prepares for competition. We also spoke to him about what it means to represent his country on such a grand scale.

PP: How did you become involved with skeleton?

BC: Honestly? I saw it on the television and thought it looked like fun. No joke. I was sitting in my dorm room my senior year of college watching the 2006 Olympics in Torino and saw this ridiculously awesome looking sport. I said to myself, "That looks like a ton of fun and I bet I could be good at that."

PP: For those who are unfamiliar, what exactly is Skeleton and what does a competition involve?

BC: Skeleton is most easily described as head-first luge. I go head-first down an ice chute at speeds up to 78mph. It is contested on the same track as luge and bobsled. The sled stands about half a foot tall on its blades (known as "runners") and has some pieces of steel welded onto it to keep me in the center (known as the "saddle") as I go down the track. I refer to it as my “flying cookie-sheet." I bend over, grab onto one side of the saddle, and literally push the sled by running with one hand on and the other hand off, which I use for balance and to generate momentum. I run in this way about 40 meters before I leap on top of the sled, and lie down. Unlike luge or bobsled the sled that I use does not have a steering mechanism proper, and so once I am lying down on the sled I instead rely on subtle movements of my head, shoulders, knees, and toes to drive the sled where I want it to go.

As for a competition, the basic format is two runs down the track and the best combined time wins. There are certain protocols on race day (runner temperature, weight requirements, etc.) which are to be taken into consideration as well. All tracks, with few exceptions, are about a mile long so you are basically racing on two miles of ice. It is not uncommon to have the difference between first and third be less than a tenth of a second. A recent World Cup race was won by literally one-one-thousandth of a second. I myself just missed Israel's first medal in an FIBT Skeleton competition by 0.2 seconds over two miles of ice. It's tough, but it's the nature of the sport and you know it when you sign up for it.

PP: What are the dangers involved and do you take any extra safety precautions during practice and events?

BC: There are dangers involved in this sport? Really? But in all seriousness, Skeleton is definitely an intense, extreme sport. Really all that I wear when I go down the mountain is a helmet, a long-track ice skating speed suit, and my spikes (which allow me to run on ice). The thing that most people are amazed to learn about Skeleton is that it is actually the safest of the three sliding sports (luge, bobsled, skeleton). It sounds so crazy because we go head-first, but that is actually the safest way to do it.
I have come off of my sled two times in my life, and both times I simply went sliding down the track on my butt until I stopped. I didn't have a scratch on me. Moreover, I actually took another run that day after coming entirely off my sled. That would never happen in Luge.


PP: You are going to become the first Israeli athlete to participate in the Skeleton World Championships. How does it feel to represent your country?

BC: It goes without saying that it is a huge honor. Israel is such a unique country in the history of the world that it really is more than just a country that I am representing; it is in fact an entire people. Every day I remind myself of what I am representing. It is not every person that gets to be the representative of their country or people. Whenever we do anything, we always remember that it is not we who are acting, but Israel and do our best to live up to being worthy representatives.

PP: Are you more nervous or excited for the World Championship stage?

BC: It is a huge honor to be representing Israel at this year's World Championships. I wouldn't say that I am nervous, since I am not expected to win anything and ultimately I am just there to compete. I think it is the type of thing that I will not truly grasp the magnitude of until I am there. However, my goal is to do my thing and represent myself and Israel with dignity and pride. Bobsledding is huge in Germany, and I am told that more than 10,000 spectators are expected to show up for the event.

Winnipeg's David Greaves, Member of First Israeli Bobsled Team, to Speak at Pre-Olympic Event

By Rhonda J. Prepes - Retrieved from http://www.winnipegjewishreview.com/article_detail.cfm?id=177&sec=1

Winnipeg’s David Greaves, one of the founding members of the first ever Israeli bobsled team, has been invited by the Vancouver chapter of Magen David Adom Canada to be a keynote speaker at a pre 2010 Winter Olympic event.

The event, which will take place on February 11, the evening before opening ceremonies, will be attended by the current Israeli Olympic team, Olympic officials, dignitaries, community leaders, and members of  Vancouver’s Jewish community – all wanting to hear about the bobsled team’s inspirational journey.

As Greaves, 42, told the Winnipeg Jewish Review, he and his pioneering teammates  had “a dream to represent Israel in a positive light and to promote the sport of bobsledding in Israel.”

In 2002, Greaves joined San Francisco residents Aaron Zeff and John Frank and Aussie coach Ross Dominikovich to form a team to represent Israel on bobsled tracks around the world.

It was in Calgary in 2002 that Greaves prepared for his first competitive run down the bobsled track, with “tears in my eyes.”  His teammate Frank turned to him and said the Shema Israel Hebrew prayer just before they pushed off. 

Although they did not qualify for the Winter Olympics in 2006, the team did compete in two World Championships and accomplished more than anyone ever thought they could.

As Greaves said, “If we had only focused on our goal of competing in the 2006 Winter Olympics, we would have missed out on the meaningful journey along the way. Although we were not successful in our Olympic quest, we did succeed in overcoming many obstacles. We were triumphant in promoting the sport of bobsledding and displaying our strong devotion for Israel.”

In their first season (2003-04), Israel ranked fifth among 15 teams competing in the America’s Cup series, a notch below the World Cup. In their second season (2004-05), the team ranked 11 out of 22 sleds in the series, despite having to forfeit one-third of the races.

As Greaves recalls, the team he co-founded had no previous experience. They learnt the sport of bobsledding through hands-on trial and error. They survived numerous crashes and injuries. They overcame personal doubts. They made aliyah to become Israeli citizens. They travelled to a variety of destinations to practice, since Israel had no bobsled track. They hired a coach, bought equipment, and rallied the support of the Israeli Olympic Committee. They did not ask for funding from the Israeli government, the Israel Olympic Committee, or the Elite Sports Federation. They used their own money, fundraised and found sponsors.

“We connected with Jews in every community that we travelled to. We became more than a team of athletes – we became ambassadors for Israel. We received a lot of publicity in Canada, the States, Europe and Israel. We built up a solid following of fans and were able to share our passion for Israel and Judaism. Surprisingly, we received a cheering reception wherever we went, even in Germany,” Greaves remembers.

Greaves told the Winnipeg Jewish Review about how the team participated in the 2004 World Championship races in Konigssee, Germany with a heightened sense of accomplishment and pride.

“To think that 65 years ago there were no Jews left in Germany, there was no State of Israel and no Israeli Olympic team and then in 2004, three Jews on the Israeli bobsled team competed in Germany within view of Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s secret retreat. All our hard work was worth it just to see the Israeli flag fly over German soil,” Greaves said.

Greaves is currently the Secretary General of the Israeli Bobsled Federation  representing athletes in bobsledding and skeleton racing.  Following his bobsledding success, he managed to parlay his passion for Israel and support of Zionism into a position with the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg. He has been Associate CJA Campaign Director for 5 years and is still living his dream. 

"Celebrity Breakfast" - The Jewish Tribune Western Edition 4/9/2009

By Alisa Bell, JTWE Correspondent

OMRI GEVA: Skeleton Racer

The first few times Omri Geva dove head first down an icy skeleton track, he wasn't sure the sport was for him.

"I didn't know what I was doing, I hit a lot of walls," the 21-year-old Israeli Olympic hopeful told the Jewish Tribune Western Edition in an interview after competing in the America's Cup, an international skeleton race, inLake Placid, NY.

Geva, along with teammate, Aliyah Snyder, a female Israeli skeleton slider, are a first for Israel; they are the first Israeli international skeleton racers.  Both have their sights on competing in the 2010 Olympics.

"It was my dream from the beginning to represent Israel doing this," said Geva, who helped found the Israeli Bobsled and Skeleton Federation.  "There is no big winter sports program in Israel, and we are responsible for raising all our own funds," Geva said, adding, "we do not have a full staff of coaches and technicians like some of the bigger teams [and] there is no place to train for skeleton within Israel, so we do all our training away from home."

Skeleton is not for the faint of heart.  Athletes plummet head first down icy tracks, reaching speeds up to 130 km/hour and forces up to 5Gs, without braking or steering mechanisms (steering only through slight shifts in the body).

If it sounds dangerous, it is.

Two years after taking up skeleton, Geva came close to ending his career when he was catapulted off the track and 20 metres through the air, landing head first onto coolant pipes.

"My helmet split in two," said Geva, "It was the scariest moment of my life, I was sure I wasn't going to survive."

Apart from severe burns, cuts and swelling - superficial but painful injuries - the Israeli skeleton racer survived the massive crash and was back on the tracks within months, finishing the season at the Americas Cup in early April.

Geva, determined to represent Israel at the winter Olympics, sees his role as particularly important in view of the international sports arena, whic has again and again discriminated against Israeli athletes.

Omri Geva reaches speeds up to 130 km/hour and forces up to 5Gs.

Last year, for example, Israeli tennis players Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram were denied entry into Dubai, preventing their participation in one of the year's largest tennis tournaments.  Despite warnings by the International Tennis Federation, the same thing happened this year with another Israeli player, Shahar Peer.  In 2003, Saudi and Yemeni tennis players refusted to participate in matches against Israelis.  In the 2004 Athens Olympics, an Iranian Judo athlete said he "would have" refused a match against an Israeli.  In 2008, an Iranian swimmer said he was too sick to swim (in the same heat as an Israeli swimmer).  In Libya's bid for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, they declared all qualified nations, except Israel, would be invited.  In 1974, the Israeli soccer federation was expelled from the Asian Football Confederation because Middle Eastern countries refused to compete against Israel.

"I'm the first to announce I'm Israeli and proud of it," the articulate young athlete told the Jewish Tribune, adding, "representing Israel comes with the additional responsibility of being a representative of the greater Jewish community."

The Frozen Chosen: The Untold Story of Israel's Olympic Bobsled Team

By Shmuel Savage - Retrieved from http://www.aish.com/j/fs/48924547.html

Would you like something to read?"
"Do you have anything light?"
"How about this pamphlet, 'Famous Jewish Sports Legends.'"
-- "Airplane" 

Sandy Koufax came along at just the right time. With memories of three-time MVP and World Series Champ Hank Greenberg fading among a new generation of baseball fans, Koufax seized the mantle as the single Jewish athlete who could carry a peoples' dreams. Later, after Koufax retired with his Cy Young awards and World Series Championships, Mark Spitz allowed the Jewish people to cry out, "Dayeinu! If it were not enough that he won seven gold medals, he did it in Munich and he was accepted to dental school!"

But, since Spitz, could the Jews identify a single athlete on whom to pin their hopes and dreams? Sure, there was a professional wrestler named Goldberg, but could we really see this two-hundred and fifty pound muscle-head joining us for a nice bowl of chullent on shabbos? And, after all of this time, maybe one man would not be enough to fill this void? Maybe we would need three men to carry our pride and maybe these three men would need to be wearing spandex.

In the fall of 2002, Aaron Zeff, John Frank and David Greaves decided to be those men and formed the Israeli two-man bobsled team. But, there were a few catches: none of them had experience bobsledding and the Israeli Olympic Committee had never heard of them or the sport.

Greaves's involvement was entirely fortuitous. During a meeting of friends in Las Vegas, Greaves met Aaron Zeff and learned that this former Top Gun fighter pilot, living in San Francisco, was planning to launch the team. Immediately, Greaves lobbied Zeff for a spot and when Zeff hurt his back and could not compete, Greaves got the call.

Twenty-four hours later,Greaves - thirty-five years old, recently married and selling business process software in Calgary -- was in a one-piece spandex suit, standing on the Calgary Olympic track. Greaves humbly remembers, "I met the prerequisites - I was in Calgary and I was Jewish." On the track, he introduced himself to his new partner, two-time Superbowl winning tight-end (one with Montana and one with Young) John Frank, now a plastic surgeon in New York.

Greaves and Frank were "forerunning" not competing -- meaning that they were taking a practice run before the actual competitors went down for that weekend's "Calgary Championships". They were like children on bicycles for the first time -- all they really had to do was hang on as someone else pushed them. Nonetheless, such an experience still had its perils, because a bike does not fly down ice at 130 kms per hour. Greaves recalls, "Before that first run, John looked at me and said, 'Gravy, say Shma Israel, and I did....twice."

When one is in a bobsled, the primary objective, even for experienced sledders, is to finish right side up - otherwise the human is no longer an athlete, but a primitive braking system. In this case, by turn seven of fourteen, Frank and Greaves had a four-hundred fifty pound sled on top of them. "I realized that we had crashed when my head was scraping against the ice," Greaves recalls. "What I would soon learn is that even in a good race, we could break some ribs." After that first run, Greaves officially became a member of the team. Who could say no to a man who had taken a faceful of ice for 1.5 kms and was still enthusiastic?
Soon, Zeff, Frank and Greaves, set an audacious goal, for a few guys who collectively had gone down the track fifteen times, never finishing right side up; they set out to compete on behalf of Israel at the World Cup. Because none of them were Israeli citizens, the three took a trip to Israel to make Aliya. "Aaron, John and I walked out of the absorption center, rented a car and gave the shekels we got from the government to Tzedakah."

Next, the three took another important step toward gaining recognition - they established the Israeli Bobsled and Tobogganing Federation, with Aaron's Uncle Oded, a religious real estate developer, as its President. Without a proper athletic body, they would not be recognized by the Federation Internationale de Bobsled et Tobaggane, attend international training and compete on the World Cup Junior circuit.

After months of patiently waiting for the next season to begin, Greaves, Frank and Zeff showed up at international training on a mission. Immediately, they encountered the German team, clad in black Adidas track suits with a twenty person entourage. The Israeli team looked like guests who had been invited to a party, unaware that they were supposed to be wearing costumes.

Greaves recalls that an American coach, Lenny Kasten, walked by and said, "Shalom," his accent revealing that he was a Russian Jew. Kasten looked at Greaves and said, "Do you know where the World Championships are this year? Konigsee." Greaves knew his history and thus knew that Hitler's winter vacation home, Eagle's Nest, was in Konigsee.

At International Training, where world powers like Germany, Canada, Switzerland and Italy fine-tuned their technique, the Israeli team learned to walk alongside the sled and then jump in while it was moving. Regardless of their technique, as long as they completed the training sessions, which they did by virtue of attending, they were able to join the America's Cup junior circuit, compete in a series of three qualifying races on Olympic Tracks in Calgary, Park City and Lake Placid and, if they finished right side up five times, they would ultimately join the World Cup Circuit that year.

In Calgary, they had two runs and not only do they finish, they medaled. In Park City and Lake Placid, they also completed their runs and finished 5th overall on the Junior Circuit. So, this band of outsiders, the "Frozen Chosen," had met the qualification standard and joined the World Cup circuit in Konigsee, alongside Olympic champions.

Wearing white spandex suits with blue ISRs across their chests and competing with a sled with the Israeli flag painted on it, the Israeli team gets to hear Hatikvah being played. Greaves describes "chills" as he speaks of the emotion released when watching elderly Germans coming to cheer them on. "I never thought that the best thing I could do for Eretz Israel was ride in the back of a bobsled."

The Israeli team ultimately came in 36th of 39 teams, finishing 3.5 seconds behind the first place finishers and their season ended. Ultimately, the training schedules, separation and bureaucratic hassles meant that the team, which came so far, needed to disband. Still, Greaves has no regrets, "We raised awareness of bobsledding in Israel and Israel through bobsledding."

They may not have clubbed 58 homers, pitched four no-hitters, won seven gold medals or bodyslammed the Rock, but the Frozen Chosen were true Jewish athletes - the kind that you would definitely want to have over for chullent on shabbos.

Frozen Chosen Given the Deep Freeze

Israeli bobsled team unable to compete in next year's winter Olympics

By Lionel Gaffen - Retrieved from http://www.jpost.com/Sports/Article.aspx?id=5546

The Israeli bobsled team, a.k.a. the "Frozen Chosen" have chosen to defrost this year away from the slopes. Team pilot Aaron Zeff, the team pilot, John Frank, and coach Ross Dominikovich, the founding members of the Israeli bobsled team, together with David Greaves, Moshe Horowitz and Andy Teig make up the team lineup. In just two full seasons of competition, they had catapulted themselves into the elite ranks of the sport, and have already taken part in two World Championships.

"No sliding this season, and we're extremely disappointed." is the word from David Greaves, who was hoping to represent Israel at February's winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. "We made the decision based on a number of factors, mainly due to the realization that no support would be forthcoming from the Israeli Olympic committee, together with changes in the family situations of most of our members."

Zeff, one of the founding members of the Israel Bobsled Federation was more direct. "Our season was basically scuttled by virtue of the fact that in order just to compete this year and to have any kind of shot at making these Olympics, we needed a letter from the Israeli Olympic Committee so that we could take part in the qualifying Challenge Cup in Europe, in order to achieve ranking and eligibility, and it wasn't forthcoming. "Once that wasn't made available to us, the rationale to compete this season no longer existed, as it also meant that we wouldn't be able to take part in the World Championships."

While the team has been very successful in the America Cup competitions during previous seasons, which earned them the right to compete in the World Cup events and ultimately, the World Championships during the past two seasons, recognition by the Israel O.C. has been a non-starter.

"Until now", Zeff continued, "We've exceeded all of our expectations, and during the coming year, we hope to be able to present the Israeli O.C., and other governmental agencies involved in these decisions. "We have a complete four year plan, in order to begin preparing the Israel Bobsled Federation to have a team ready for the 2010 Winter Olympics to be held in Vancouver, Canada.

"We hope to recruit some more of the younger Israeli athletes like Moshe Horowitz, [brakeman during this year's World Championships] who lives in Jerusalem, in order to continue growing and developing."

The high point of the team's career was in reaching their first World Championship, that took place in the historically poignant town of Konigssee, Germany, a glance away from the site of Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" stronghold in the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden. Sliding to the applause of elderly Germans who appreciated the bittersweet significance of seeing an Israeli bobsled team competing at that location was a tremendously emotional experience for the team.

"I'm making plans to come to Israel this summer. I will spend time recruiting, and will make a special visit to the Canada Center where we have our first bobsled on permanent display, to give the youngsters of Israel a better idea of what bobsledding is all about." concluded Zeff.