Jews have never been great at the winter Olympics. In the first 18 winter Olympics (between 1924 and 1998) Jews have only won 11 medals. In fact, only 4% of Jewish Olympic medals were won at the winter games. However, all that changed in 2002. 3 Jewish athletes won medals in Salt Lake City, and Jews have won medals at every winter Olympics since. Sochi is no exception. On Sunday, just 3 days into the games, Jews have already won 3 medals.
American figure skaters, Jason Brown and Charlie White won bronze medals at the team event. Dylan Moscvovitch won a silver medal with the Canadian national team in the same event.
Israeli speed skater, Vladislav Bykanov was not as fortunate. Bykanov finished in 4th place in the 1500 meter quarter final heat, just missing a spot in the semi finals by 0.07 seconds. We wish him better luck in the 500 meter and 1000 meter events.
In other news, Russian figure skater Yulia Lipnitskaya won a gold medal in front of the home crowd at just 15 years old. She turned a lot of Jewish heads while doing so. Lipnitskaya skated to the theme song from “Schindler’s list” and wore a red dress just like the little girl from the famous scene of the Spielberg movie.