Israel chooses team for Winter Olympics

January 27, 2010 - 10:35 AM by David

Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky

Winter sports and Israel aren’t often thought of in the same sentence. But this week’s heavy precipitation has seen over a foot of snow fall on Mount Hermon in the Golan, and the skiing season has officially begun.

And in a case of good timing, the Olympic Committee of Israel announced this week it would be sending a three-member delegation to the Winte Olympics next month in Vancouver – Roman and Alexandra Zaretsky, a brother-and-sister skating duo, and skier Mikail Renzhin.

Renzhin will compete in the slalom and giant slalom events. The Zaretskys finished seventh in the 2010 European Championships, and are scheduled to skate to “Hava Nagila” and the theme music from the film Schindler’s List. For all three, it will be their second Olympic appearance.

Roman began skating as a 4-year-old in Belarus, while his younger sister started after the family’s aliya to Israel at the Canada Center in Metula. “He decided that he didn’t want to skate alone, so my parents looked for a partner for him,” Alexandra, now 22, told Ha’aretz. “I was supposed to be a stand-in until a suitable partner could be found.”

Their mother, Elena, sent them to Delaware to study with top professionals after they began outskating their teachers in Israel.

“We had the potential and had to make the move,” explains Roman. “Either we went to the United States to get better, or we stayed in Metula where the conditions are not suitable for breeding champions. Our mother couldn’t go with us for financial reasons.”

They both say they miss Israel and feel foreign in New Jersey, where they now live. Their apartment is always stocked with pickled cucumbers, Turkish coffee and other Israeli-made foodstuffs. “We grew up in Metula with the beautiful view of the Golan, then suddenly found ourselves here, where the people aren’t always so nice. It doesn’t feel like home. There’s nothing like Israel.”

Maybe they’ll be the ones to bring home Israel’s first medal in a winter Olympics.

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