Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

The 5 Biggest Sports Underdogs of All Time

Image by Getty

Team Israel’s 3-0 start to the World Baseball Classic is one of the most improbable stories in baseball history. But are they the greatest underdog sports story of all time? We take a look at five of our favorites from the Olympics and other international competitions:

5) Swiss beach volleyball

Image by Getty

Switzerland is a dominant country at the Winter Olympics, but its chilly climate does not lend itself well to the summer games. Switzerland is also a landlocked country, which makes the country’s success in beach volleyball all the more shocking.

Somehow, Isabelle Forrer and Anouk Vergé-Dépré finished ninth at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

4) Eddie the Eagle

Image by Getty

When Michael “Eddie” Edwards did not make the cut as a downhill skier for Great Britain, he chose to take up ski jumping. Eddie the Eagle was living in a mental hospital in Finland – it was the only housing that he could afford – when he was told that he had qualified for the 1988 Games. He finished in last place, but his story was made into the film “Eddie the Eagle” in 2016.

3) The Miracle on Ice

Image by Getty

This one is the original underdog story. The Soviet Union had won the gold medal in six of the seven previous Winter Olympics, and were the prohibitive favorites to do so again. The U.S. win is perhaps the most famous moment in Olympic history, and Sports Illustrated later named that game the top sports moment of the 20th century.

The 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team is easily the most iconic squad on this list, but they did not face as long odds as…

2) Team Israel

There are five baseball fields in the entire country of Israel. Not a single Team Israel player is listed on a Major League Baseball team’s 40-man roster. Bookmakers listed Israel at 200-1 to win the World Baseball Classic – a tournament with just 16 teams.

Yet Team Israel are 3-0 in the WBC, and have defeated three of the top 10 countries in the world in the process. Next up for this scrappy squad of Jewish underdogs? A date with Cuba on Saturday night.

1) Jamaican bobsled

Cue the music!

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.