It's not every day that Europe's largest sportswear manufacturer features an Orthodox Jew on a billboard. Yet that's precisely what happened when Adidas portrayed Israeli national marathon and half marathon champion Beatie (Bracha) Deutsch in an ad campaign earlier this year along Tel Aviv's Ayalon Highway.

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The 31-year-old mother of five, who immigrated to Israel at the age of 19, recently appeared in the company's "Impossible Is Nothing" campaign in her signature look -- a below-the-knee skirt, three-quarter-length sleeves, and a headscarf.

This isn't the first time that American-born Deutsch, whose moniker on Instagram is @marathonmother, has defied stereotypes.

Deutsch, who narrowly missed competing for Israel at the Tokyo Olympics, came to the sport only five years ago. She began running after the birth of her fourth child, the fourth she delivered in six years.

After losing too many informal races at family reunions on the beach, Deutsch decided to commit herself to training for a marathon to get in shape. Her first official race was the 2016 Tel Aviv Marathon, which she ran in 3:27.

Deutsch ran her next marathon a year later, in 2017, when she was seven months pregnant, training until the day she gave birth.

Her race time for the marathon was 4:08:16, hinting at a great deal of untapped potential.

"I had the best labor, delivery, and recovery with my fifth child, the only pregnancy I ran through," admits Deutsch.

Deutsch went on to win half-marathon victories in Latvia and Tel Aviv in 2019 and Miami in 2020.

'I find running to be an incredible opportunity for prayer and to talk to God'

She also took Israel's national championship, the Tiberias Marathon, in 2019, clocking 2:42:18, three minutes faster than the-then most recent Olympic standard set in 2016. In 2020, she took the women's title at 2:32:25, shaving about 10 minutes off her previous time.

It hasn't always been easy. In January 2018, shortly before the Jerusalem Marathon, Deutsch was diagnosed with Celiac's, an autoimmune disease.

"I was anemic for a while before I realized. I felt really weak and had to stop to catch my breath frequently," says Deutsch, who now maintains a gluten-free diet. "Once I stopped eating gluten, my body started absorbing [iron]."

Then in 2020, she injured her left shin and had to take six weeks off from running.

Deutsch had hoped to represent Israel at this summer's Tokyo Olympics, rescheduled from 2020. She set a personal record of 2:31:39 at an April qualifying race in England two minutes, nine seconds shy of the Olympic criterion.

"I initially qualified through the ranking system but then with the prolonged qualifying period, I had to hit the guaranteed standard of 2:29:30," Deutsch explains. "I trained to run that time and was in the best shape of my life but unfortunately didn't quite make it."

For Deutsch, running has become a meditative experience. "I find running to be an incredible opportunity for prayer and to talk to God," she says.

The joy, she says, is in "being alone, discovering a new place, and soaking in every tiny detail of the world around me."

As most people have, Deutsch has experienced many obstacles recently, largely due to the pandemic, which has canceled races, challenged training schedules, reduced sponsorship offers, and hampered opportunities to win prize money.

In June, when a fellow athlete in the Israeli track-and-field delegation tested positive for COVID-19, the entire team, including Deutsch, was prevented from flying to the European championships in Bulgaria.

"If there's anything I've learned from running," Deutsch posted online after her disappointing Wales showing, "it is to stand strong and stay positive, to drown out the voices of self-defeat and hold on to faith. I want to make the most of this one precious life that I was given."

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Missing Tokyo hasn't crushed Deutsch's Olympic dreams; she now has her sights set on the Paris Games in 2024. Meanwhile, she is heading to Berlin's BMW Marathon, slated for Sept. 26. There, Deutsch will attempt to qualify again. If she succeeds, she will represent Israel in the World Championships in July 2022 in Eugene, Oregon.

"Super excited for the opportunity to run my heart out in Berlin, and finish at the historic Brandenburg Gate, where [Nazi leader Adolf] Hitler was appointed chancellor and proclaimed his plans to annihilate the Jews," Deutsch posted on Facebook.

'Conflict only happens when you take running out of context and see it as the be-all and end-all. We are ultimately souls, not bodies'

"Can't think of a more fitting way to demonstrate Am Yisrael Chai [the people of Israel live] than by racing as a proud Orthodox Jewish mother."

Today, Deutsch is sponsored by the Israeli Olympic Committee, allowing her to focus all her energy on running.

She rises at 5 a.m. to clock roughly 100 miles each week. She also strength trains thrice weekly on top of swim and/or cycle sessions a few times a week. On Sundays, she runs about 22 miles; the standard marathon is 26 miles.

Deutsch tries to prioritize sleep as "the best way to recover," but notes "it's not easy as a mom."

Her regimen includes weekly massage, nutrition consultations to maximize "fueling," and ice baths to aid recovery.

Deutsch has leveraged her public profile to raise awareness and, so far, 115,000 shekels ($35,600) for Beit Daniella, an Israeli recovery day center for youth struggling with mental health issues, including eating disorders.

Racing enhances rather than hampers her religious observance, Deutsch says.

"Conflict only happens when you take running out of context and see it as the be-all and end-all. We are ultimately souls, not bodies. And we need to remember that Hashem [God] is the source of our strength. We can't take credit for our accomplishments," she says.

Her modest attire, however, does raise questions. "I've definitely been asked about it," Deutsch says. "It has an impact, though it depends on the weather and race distance."

Black belt

Deutsch was first nicknamed "Speedy Beatie" on the basketball court at her all-girls Orthodox high school in her native Passaic, New Jersey.

Née Beatrice Rabin, she earned a black belt in taekwondo at 16 and studied gymnastics from the age of six to 12. She made aliyah after marrying her husband, then an avid cyclist. The couple resides in Neve Michael, a moshav near Beit Shemesh.

"Resilience, grit, and determination" are among the qualities Deutsch hones through training.  She also credits the sport with getting more in touch with herself.

Running, she says, "creates an attitude that spills over into all areas of our lives, demanding more from ourselves, striving to become the best version of ourselves, pushing past perceived limitations, stepping out of our comfort zone."

But that's not all that brings her satisfaction.

Being a mom to my five children, including one with special needs," Deutsch says, "is definitely an accomplishment."

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by Israel21c. 

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A Belarusian Olympic sprinter plans to seek asylum in Poland, an activist group said Monday, after the athlete alleged that her team's officials tried to force her to fly home, where she feared she wouldn't be safe from an autocratic government that recently was accused of diverting a plane in order to arrest a dissident journalist.

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Athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya received a humanitarian visa from the Polish embassy in Tokyo, according to a Polish Foreign Ministry official. The Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, an activist group that is helping the runner, told The Associated Press that the group bought her a plane ticket to Warsaw for the coming days.

The current standoff apparently began after Tsimanouskaya criticized how officials were managing her team  –setting off a massive backlash in state-run media back home, where authorities relentlessly crack down on government critics. Tsimanouskaya said on her Instagram account that she was put in the 4x400 relay even though she has never raced in the event.

Tsimanouskaya was then apparently hustled to the airport but refused to board a flight for Istanbul and instead approached police for help. In a filmed message distributed on social media, she also asked the International Olympic Committee for assistance.

"I was put under pressure, and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent," the 24-year-old runner said in the message.

The rapid-fire series of events brought international political intrigue to an Olympics that have been more focused on operational dramas, like maintaining safety during a pandemic and navigating widespread Japanese opposition to holding the event at all.

Belarus' authoritarian government has relentlessly targeted anyone even mildly expressing dissent since a presidential election a year ago triggered a wave of unprecedented mass protests. And it has also gone to extremes to stop its critics, including the recent plane diversion that European officials called an act of air piracy.

In this context, Tsimanouskaya feared for her safety once she saw the campaign against her in state media, according to the sports foundation.

"The campaign was quite serious and that was a clear signal that her life would be in danger in Belarus," Alexander Opeikin, a spokesman for the foundation, told the AP in an interview.

Tsimanouskaya's next steps were not clear. Vadim Krivosheyev, also of the sports foundation, said she planned to seek asylum. Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek, a Polish deputy foreign minister, said the runner asked for the humanitarian visa for now and can still seek refugee status once in Poland.

Athletes seeking asylum at global sporting events is nothing new. It was especially frequent during the Cold War but has also happened occasionally in the decades since. As many as 117 athletes defected at the Munich Olympics in 1972, for instance, according to reports at the time. At least four Romanians and a Soviet associated with the Olympics defected at the Montreal Games in 1976. And Cuban athletes have frequently done so.

Underscoring the seriousness of the allegations, several groups and countries say they are helping the runner. Poland and the Czech Republic offered assistance, and Japan's Foreign Ministry said it was working with the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo Olympics organizers.

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The IOC, which has been in dispute with the Belarus National Olympic Committee ahead of the Tokyo Games, said it had intervened.

"The IOC … is looking into the situation and has asked the NOC for clarification," it said in a statement.

Many critics of Belarus' government have fled to Poland. Marcin Przydacz, another deputy foreign minister, confirmed on Twitter that Tsimanouskaya had received a humanitarian visa from Poland, adding that the country would also help her to continue her sports career.

"Poland always stands for Solidarity," he said.

Several hours after she entered the Polish embassy, Tsimanouskaya was still believed to be inside. Outside, two exiled Belarusian women who live in Tokyo offered the runner support. They waved a flag that was a mix of the opposition's banner and the Japanese flag.

Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek also tweeted that the Czech Republic has offered her asylum.

"If she decides to accept it, we'll do our maximum to help her," he wrote.

The Belarus National Olympic Committee has been led for more than 25 years by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko and his son, Viktor.

Both Lukashenkos are banned from the Tokyo Olympics by the IOC, which investigated complaints from athletes that they faced reprisals and intimidation during the crackdown following the wave of anti-government protests over the last year.

"Lukashenko perceives all criticism as part of a plot by Western countries," said Valery Karbalevich, an independent Belarusian political analyst. "Tsimanouskaya's protest is viewed as part of a broader movement of hundreds of Belarusian athletes who stood against the beatings of peaceful demonstrators and for a year have been taking part in street rallies."

A spokeswoman for the Belarus Olympic team did not respond to a request for comment.

The standoff over Tsimanouskaya comes just months after the dramatic diversion of a passenger plane flying between two EU countries. Belarusian authorities ordered the plane to land in Minsk – and pulled journalist and activist Raman Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend off the flight.

The elder Lukashenko maintained that there was a bomb threat against the plane and that's why a fighter jet was scrambled to force it to land, but the move was roundly criticized by Western leaders.

Pratasevich, who ran a channel on a messaging app used to organize demonstrations against Lukashenko's rule, left his homeland in 2019. He has been charged with fomenting mass unrest and is under house arrest while he awaits trial.

Amid Monday's drama, Tsimanouskaya missed the Olympic 200-meter heats that she was due to participate in. She already competed for Belarus on the first day of track events Friday at the National Stadium in Tokyo. She placed fourth in her first-round heat in the 100 meters, timing 11.47 seconds, and did not advance.

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Chemtai-Salpeter's Tokyo time makes her the sixth-fastest female marathoner of all time.

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Following the race, the champion said she was "very pleased" with her result.

"My preparation allowed me to improve my personal best. I fell that today's result is a return for all the hard work of the last few months. Unfortunately, in my last two marathons, I wasn't able to express myself on the day of the race, but today the conditions here in Tokyo were perfect," she said.

In September 2019, Chemtai-Salpeter set a new European women's record for the 10K distance, running the Tilburg Ten Miles race in 30:04, 17 seconds faster than the previous record, which legendary British runner Paula Radcliffe set in 2003. The 30:04 also became a new Israeli women's record for the distance.

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Chemtai-Salpeter's result of 30:04 also became a new Israeli women's record for the distance, as well as a course record for the Tilburg Ten Miles race.

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"I'm pleased with today's result. I'm not surprised, because training has been going well. This race today was part of my training program for the Marathon World Championships in Doha [Qatar]," Chemtai-Salpeter said after the race.

"This time was confirmation that if you train properly and prepare a training plan professionally, including proper diet, injury prevention, and more, you can become a professional athlete. I'm happy that I broke the European record, and I'm heading in the right direction," Chemtai-Salpeter said.

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