Swiss TV Commentary About Political Views of Israel’s Olympic Bobsleigh Pilot Ruled to Be Discriminatory

Shiryn Ghermezian

Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 2-man Heat 2 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 16, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel and Menachem Chen of Israel react after their run. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

A Swiss public broadcaster’s commentary about the political views of Israeli bobsleigh team pilot Adam Edelman during his competition in the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics was discriminatory, Switzerland’s Independent Authority for the Examination of Complaints in Radio and Television, known by its French acronym AIEP, ruled on Friday.

On Feb. 16 during the Winter Olympics, Edelman and his bobsleigh teammate Menachem Chen were making their way down the ice track when Stefan Renna, a commentator for Switzerland’s French-language public broadcaster “Radio Télévision Suisse” (RTS), talked on air about Edelman’s social media posts that expressed support for Israel’s military actions in the Israel-Hamas war. Renna also said Edelman is a “self-defined ‘Zionist to the core’” who posted “several messages on social media in support of the genocide in Gaza.” The RTS commentator claimed the American-Israeli athlete should have been banned from the Olympics because of his “support of the genocide in Gaza.” RTS removed from its website a clip featuring the commentary and said the remarks were not “appropriate” for a sports broadcast.

The AIEP’s 9-member committee said on Friday that it upheld four complaints about the commentary by five votes against four.

“The majority of members came to the conclusion that the comment, probably prepared in advance, suggesting that the Israeli athlete should be excluded from the Olympic Games because of his political opinions, had conveyed a stigmatizing and therefore discriminatory message against him compared to the other 25 athletes competing that day,” the AIEP said in a statement. “The members considered that the sports commentator had made an inequality of treatment between the Israeli athlete and the other competitors, thus violating the prohibition of discrimination.”

Rulings made by the AIEP may be appealed in federal court.

Edelman criticized the “diatribe” said on air by the RTS commentator while US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the commentary “beyond disgusting” and said Renna “spewed bigotry and bile.”