Adi Bichman

Adi Bichman was born in 1983 in Kiryat Ono

Adi Maia Bichman was born on February 5, 1983, and grew up in Kiryat Ono. She began swimming with the Maccabi Kiryat Ono team as a young child. At 11 she moved to train at the academy for gifted athletes at the Wingate Institute.

She swam the 400m and 800m freestyle and the 400m medley at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She placed fifth at the 1999 European Championships in Helsinki and won 2 bronze medals at the 1999 European Junior Championships in Moscow. She was the first Israeli woman to swim the 800m freestyle in under 9 minutes and held an Israeli record from 1998 to 2021.

She studied psychology and sports management at Rice University in Texas on an athletic scholarship. She later earned a computer science degree in Tel Aviv-Yafo, a gender studies master's at Tel Aviv University, and a sports management master's through the IOC MEMOS program.

After retiring she moved into sports management. In 2015 she became head of sports for the Savyon local council, and since 2016 she has worked at Ono Academic College, where she was named director of the Faculty of Health Professions in 2022. She joined the board of the Olympic Committee of Israel in 2021, and in November 2025 she was chosen as its CEO.

She is married to Yaniv Shir-Az, and they have 2 daughters.