Germany has announced its bobsled roster for the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games. On that roster, alongside the expected names of greats such as Francesco Friedrich (owner of four gold Olympic medals) and Johannes Lochner (who claimed two silver Olympic medals), were Issam and Adam Ammour, rising stars in the sliding sport powerhouse nation.
As with all athletes in Olympic sports, making it to the Games is the pinnacle of their hopes and dreams. But for both brothers, the dream wasn’t just a ticket to the Olympics – it was going there together, racing in a sled as part of the same team.
“It's kind of a reward for all these hardships that happened in the past, to be with my brother together, especially now heading to the Olympic Games,” Issam said.
Being part of the German contingent heading to Cortina in February is no small feat. Germany dominates the three sliding sports of bobsled, skeleton and luge. In bobsled alone, they’ve won the most Olympic medals (32) all time. They took nine of a possible 10 gold medals at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and in the two-man event they swept all three podium places.
That depth of talent has been both a blessing and a curse for the older Ammour brother, for whom the most intense competition comes from within the federation.
Competing in track and field, gymnastics, American football and martial arts, Issam, nine years older than his younger brother, Adam, was athletic from a young age. He began lifting weights and putting on muscle at the perfect time to be recruited to the sport of bobsled, where explosive power is needed for the first effort – the push – to get the sled moving, and weight is needed to aid a downward slide along the track.
Junior world champion in 2019 in both the two-man and four-man events, Issam’s trajectory seemed clear. But in the following years he found himself overlooked for top-tier teams, subject to the complex selection process to decide who goes to World Cup and world championship events.
“Even though my push times were very fast – I'm still one of the fastest pushers in Germany – I was not lucky,” Issam said. “I thought about quitting in 2020 when I was taken off the sled of the world championship, I was broken as an athlete. Of course, this is just the life and fate of an athlete, but that was very tough.”
But then, Issam introduced his brother to the sport.
As the eldest of five, Issam was the driving force in his family. He encouraged all four of his younger siblings to join him in sport, bringing them to practice, signing them up for competitions and organizing their training. While his other two brothers and sister all are athletic, only Issam and Adam have chosen a path of professional sports. “I think it's already enough to have two professional athletes in one family,” Issam said.
“I wanted everyone to be athletic and have fun doing sports. I was always proud to see my siblings being so strong,” Issam said, noting that of them all, Adam showed the most talent.
While Issam had become a brakeman (a position that helps push the sled and then quickly jumps in, keeping tightly tucked inside the sled) he encouraged Adam, who was young enough to learn, to become a pilot. In 2023, shortly after starting the sport, Adam piloted his two-man sled to a Junior World gold, taking silver in the four-man.
It was realizing that Adam was champion material, that kept Issam from early retirement, as he began to hope that one day they could be on a team together.
“The imagination of going together with my brother in the future kept me kind of motivated and alive in my dreams,” Issam said.
The Ammour brothers follow a long history of siblings competing in bobsled, both as rivals and teams. From the American Stevens brothers, who took Olympic gold in 1932, to the Mexican Tames brothers (who went down in the Guiness World Book of Records as the most siblings – four – in a single event).
Uninterested by rivalry, their goal is to work together. “We competed against each other in the Europe Cup,” Issam said. “And I told myself, I will never [again] compete against my own brother.”
In 2023, they finally got their wish, racing together at the final event of the 2022-23 IBSF World Cup. Teaming up for the two-man for the first time, they clocked an impressive 4th-place finish.
“Issam made me a promise – if I can achieve what we agreed on, he’ll push my sled,” Adam said after that first race. “It went pretty well, and he had to hold his promise. And now he’s part of my team.”
In the short time since then, Adam has gone from success to success. In just a couple of seasons he’s taken two-dozen World Cup medals, most recently clocking 3rd place in the overall World Cup standings behind his German teammates. Much of this has been done with Issam in his sled. And now, despite a groin injury initially holding Issam back this season, the two capped off a World Cup circuit with a win in the four-man event together.
Adam is clear that this success is thanks to his older brother, who first shared his love of athletics, and then mentored him through his transition to bobsled. They choose to live together at home with their parents and siblings when not on the road for competition, and their closeness and respect for one another is evident.
“When I started, [Issam] was already five years into it,” Adam said. “He knew how things were done. He was pretty much my mentor and taught me everything I had to know – until the day he couldn't teach me anymore.”
Now, they are headed to the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games, and their whole family will be joining them there to cheer them on.
“It's all a lot of pressure, because the German bobsled teams are one of the best,” Adam said. “It's do or die. But we also have a lot of pride. We're honored to represent Germany. It's the country we grew up in. They gave us all the resources we needed to get to a place where we are able to compete at the world class level. And here we are.”