Golden jubilee for a bigger Games
This is the 14th edition of the Winter Paralympics, to be held on the 50th anniversary of its first. It will be bigger than ever before, with more than 600 athletes from 56 countries expected to take part. El Salvador, Haiti, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Portugal will compete for the first time. There will be 79 different medal events in six different sports, with mixed doubles in wheelchair curling a new addition since Beijing 2022. The president of the International Paralympic Committee, Andrew Parsons, said the Games would deliver “world-class sport [that is] highly competitive. Sport that will surprise you. And most importantly, sport that will have a life-changing impact on everyone who witnesses it.”
From Verona to Milan via Cortina
As with the Winter Olympics, which grabbed the attention of the world last month, these Paralympic Games are to be hosted by Milano Cortina across a range of venues hundreds of miles apart. The opening ceremony will take place in Verona on Friday night, before the action proper begins at the central hub of Cortina d’Ampezzo on Saturday. Cortina will host para-alpine skiing at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre, alongside wheelchair curling and para-snowboard. Nordic events – para-biathlon and para-cross country skiing – will be staged at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium near the town of Predazzo. Finally, the Para-Ice hockey competition will take place in Milan at the Santagiulia Stadium.
Six sports – but many categories
Events are limited to the six sports listed above but, as with all para-sports, they are broken down into different categories reflecting the disability of the athletes. Alpine skiing, say, includes five different events – slalom, giant slalom, super-G, downhill and super combined – which are then broken down into men’s and women’s categories and then further by classification. These create separate races for visually impaired athletes and for those who race either standing or sitting down.
Similar splits by classification apply in cross-country skiing, which will include sprint, distance and relay events. Para-snowboarding will be broken into two types of competition – banked slalom and snowboard cross – but classification will allow for three different events in the male category and one in the women’s, where only athletes with lower-limb disabilities below the knee will compete. Para-ice hockey is contested by athletes with lower-limb disabilities, with each team having six players on ice. Wheelchair curling is also for those with physical disabilities in their legs, and is contested entirely by those throwing the stones, with no sweepers involved.
Who are the stars?
With an unprecedented number of athletes, there is a growing number of para-stars waiting to claim their moment in the spotlight. For the hosts Italy the big name is Giacomo Bertagnolli, who competes in all five Alpine skiing events and has eight Paralympic medals to his name, four of them gold. Bertagnolli says: “It will be a big stage for me and for the whole Paralympic world because we are finally in Italy and in Europe. I hope there will be a large turnout, something the Paralympics are still missing.”
Likely to generate the biggest headlines are the US athletes Oksana Masters and Brenna Huckaby. Masters is a Paralympian in both summer and winter events, having competed in rowing and adaptive cycling as well as the para-biathlon where she claimed gold twice in the sitting category in 2022. Huckaby, meanwhile, is a three-time snowboarding champion who is also an activist for disability rights and has twice been named America’s best athlete with a disability at the ESPY awards. Ukraine are taking a team of 25 athletes to the Games. Iran, meanwhile, have a solitary athlete scheduled for competition: Aboulfazl Khatibi Mianaei has qualified for two events in the para cross-country skiing.
PBs – not gold – the target for GB
British expectations are being managed, with no set medal target and messaging around expectations focused on a team of 25 athletes achieving personal bests. A range of two to five medals is expected, which would be a decline on Beijing, where Britain finished 14th in the rankings with six medals; one gold, one silver and four bronze. The winner of that gold, Neil Simpson, races again in the visually impaired men’s super G, alongside his brother and guide Andrew. Also returning will be the most decorated Winter Paralympian in British history, Menna Fitzpatrick MBE, who has won six medals in visually impaired skiing, including slalom gold at Pyeongchang in 2018. Fitzpatrick makes the games despite sustaining two serious injuries over the past year, including damage to her knee just three months ago.
In the grip of geopolitics
The Winter Paralympics is set for the most politicised games in its 50-year history. The IPC’s decision last autumn to overturn a ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes competing under their own flags has led to heated controversy. Seven central and eastern European nations are set to boycott Friday’s opening ceremony (six of them in solidarity with the seventh, Ukraine).
Meanwhile, the IPC was on Thursday afternoon unable to publicly confirm which nations will definitely be taking part due to the outbreak of warfare in the Middle East this past week. Before the Games, IPC president Parsons expressed his hope that the focus of these Games could be on the sport. “We are a sport organisation, these games are about sport. But not only sport. These games are about inclusion too,” he said, stressing the importance of the Games to one of “the most marginalised segments of society”.
Whether his wishes are met, or global turbulence becomes the dominant theme will only be known in due course.
