Paralympics

Athletes in T-shirts, fans applying suncream – have these been the Summer or Winter Paralympics?

If you were to listen to American Patrick Halgren, who called the conditions at the Milan-Cortina Games “tropical” and “like surfing”, you would think the former.

Until you were told he is a skier.

Since the 1992 Games, the Winter Paralympics have always been held in March, usually starting just shy of a fortnight after the conclusion of the Winter Olympics.

That means conditions during the Games have often been more spring-like than winter, with temperatures peaking at 26C four years ago in Beijing.

While such temperatures have not been felt in Cortina, it has been warm, and until a huge dump of snow fell the night before Sunday’s final day of competition, snow had only been seen on the groomed competition pistes.

A blazing sun on several days of competition, mixed with some rain, had caused snow on the courses to turn soft and slushy, which in turns sticks to athletes’ skis and snowboards.

Last weekend a third official training session for the Para-alpine skiing downhill events was cancelled in a bid to maintain the piste conditions.

While many athletes have praised the efforts of organisers to keep the tracks in as good a condition as possible, conditions on Friday during the men’s giant slalom events were far from ideal, with British visually impaired skier Fred Warburton describing it as a “bathtub of Slush Puppie”.

His guide, James Hannan, said: “The snow surface was changing every single gate, so we never knew how the ski was going to react.

“It was almost like survival of the fittest.”

It certainly proved that way during the sitting event, which followed the visually impaired and standing races: 18 athletes from a field of 37 failed to make it to the bottom of the course.

“The organisers need to look at scheduling with obvious changes of the climate that we’re experiencing,” said Warburton.

“Both the Olympics and Paralympics want to be top spectacles of skiing and allow athletes to put their best work down.

“We need to look at the schedule and move it forward in future. That’s way beyond my pay grade, but it seems pretty logical to me.”

Warburton’s words echoed those of retired American Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy, who this week said in a video on TikTok: “I don’t believe that the Paralympics should be happening right now.”

Her comments came after the snowboard cross course had to be adjusted following numerous crashes in training, partly because of its design but also the warm conditions.

British Para-skier Menna Fitzpatrick says she is already looking to the future after missing out on a medal at the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics.

The 27-year-old, who is Britain’s most successful Winter Paralympian, suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury late last year and postponed surgery to compete at her third Games.

But after finishing fifth in her final event in Italy, the women’s visually impaired slalom, she told BBC Sport she wants to make it to another Games.

“Every end of a cycle marks a new challenge and my plan is to hopefully make it to France in 2030,” she said.

“I first learned how to ski in France so it’s almost like going home. That will be a really cool one for me to aim for.”

Fitzpatrick and guide Katie Guest saved their best finish for last after two sixth places in the super-G and giant slalom and ninth in the Alpine combined.

Austrian Veronika Aigner maintained her dominance with her fourth gold of the Games, finishing four seconds clear of compatriot Elina Stary.

Despite not coming away with another medal for her collection, Fitzpatrick was keen to focus on the positives.

“I think it’s been a really successful Games for us, considering where I was before, so I’m really happy, especially with the performance today,” she added.

“We really went out there and pushed it, and are really happy with the result.

“As an athlete you always hope for your absolute best skiing in a race. It often doesn’t happen like that and as athletes we’re really hard on ourselves when things are tough.

“It’s been a challenging two weeks, but just knowing that I’ve got these performances within me, even if the preparation didn’t go quite to plan, gives me confidence.”

Through skiing, he has achieved that.

He first experienced the sport on a trip with friends, but it was only two years ago that he realised this was his way to make his mark on the world.

“I touched the snow, and I never turned back,” he said. Etienne wanted to become the Caribbean nation’s first Winter Paralympian.

“At first skiing meant freedom to me, and then I realised it was inspiration. That is what the Paralympics are about.

“It is a message of hope to disabled people and the rest of the world.”

With US restrictions on Haitian immigration rights making it difficult for him to travel to train, last year – supported by his employer Bank of America – Etienne relocated from New York to London to be closer to the mountains of Europe for weekend training.

“Sometimes I’m leaving the office at 2am because I have work I need to finish before I get on a 6am flight to get to Switzerland,” he told the Wall Street Journal, external.

On Friday, after just 80 days on snow in his life, he achieved his dream of racing at the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics.

Aided by a 12-month grant from the International Paralympic Committee’s Sport for Mobility programme, he has joined athletes from El Salvador, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Portugal in making their nations’ debut at the Games.

His result, a disqualification on his second run of the standing giant slalom, is secondary to his story.

“Haiti has a skier. That’s the most beautiful sentence I have heard in a long time,” he said.

“On the first run I proved that Haiti can ski competitively. Before the race, I had won.

“I get to say that there is hope, I get to tell the Haitian youth that if I can do this today with one leg, they can do anything.

“I’ve gone from the earthquake rubble to the top of the Dolomites with the very best skiers in the world.

“Anything is possible. I get to show young Haitians that all is not lost.”

Adicoff, from Sun Valley, Idaho, has been skiing since childhood – dabbling in both alpine and Nordic skiing before alpine was deemed too dangerous.

He competed against sighted rivals at junior level. After being selected for the US Para-Nordic team in 2013, he went to the 2014 Games in Sochi while still a high school student.

A first Paralympic medal came four years later in Pyeongchang when he finished second behind Canadian Paralympic legend Brian McKeever in the 10km classic event, but he retired after the Games before returning for the 2022 Beijing Games.

Despite high hopes of gold, Adicoff achieved two more individual silvers behind McKeever before anchoring the US team to relay gold for his first Paralympic title.

But it left Adicoff wanting more and with the retirement of 16-time Paralympic champion McKeever the division was wide open.

The American seized his chance to dominate, with World Cup and World Championship success ahead of the Games.

Unlike at Beijing, where supporters did not travel because of the pandemic, athletes at these Games have benefited from being able to be watched by friends and family and Adicoff’s entourage have been enjoying the experience.

Whether they are waving giant faces of Adicoff and his guides Reid Goble and Peter Wolter or wearing hats with his name on it, their presence has been felt at the Tesero Cross-Country Centre

Adicoff, who has another medal chance in Sunday’s 20km event and is also set to go in Saturday’s 4×2.5km mixed relay, may not be able to fully see them while he competes, but he has taken it all in and joined in the post-race celebrations.

“To have so many people that came out and supported us and are going to continue to support us throughout the week. It’s so nice having friends and family here,” he said.

“You see all those white hats up there? It’s so fun to have.

“I love skiing, love ski racing, so it makes finding the motivation kind of easy.”

Fans tuning into the Winter Paralympics will have spotted figure skating missing from the programme at Milan-Cortina despite it being one of the most popular sports at the Olympics.

There are just six sports at the Games: Para-Alpine skiing, Para-biathlon, Para-cross-country skiing, Para-ice hockey, wheelchair curling and Para-snowboard.

For skating to be included in the Winter Paralympics, the International Skating Union (ISU) needs to become recognised by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

The IPC would also need to approve a range of conditions affecting how the sport is run – including venues, costs and deciding classification categories for competing athletes.

But there are growing calls from skaters for the sport to be included and the IPC says it is keen to expand the Paralympic programme.

No new sports have been added since Para-snowboard in 2014.

Speaking before Milan-Cortina, IPC chief Andrew Parsons said: “We have not reached the limit as per our agreement with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in terms of the number of athletes in sports. But it is not only about the limit, it is about obviously the quality of the sport at an international level.”

“For example, we don’t have skating sports, we don’t have short course, we don’t have figure skating, because these sports are not on an international level,” he added.

The blanket ban imposed on Russian and Belarusian athletes in 2022 was reduced to a partial ban in 2023, allowing athletes from the two nations to compete as neutrals at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

In September 2025, the IPC lifted that ban entirely but the four individual governing bodies in charge of the six sports contested at the Winter Paralympics decided to keep their bans in place.

In December, Russia and Belarus won an appeal against FIS – the governing body for skiing and snowboarding – at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), permitting their athletes in those sports to compete and accumulate ranking points.

As a result, 10 athletes were then awarded bipartite commission invitations to compete at the Winter Paralympics.

Bipartite commission invites are granted to individual athletes, rather than their international federation, and allow the participation of top athletes “who may not have had the opportunity to qualify through other methods due to extraordinary circumstances”, among other factors.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky called the decision “awful” while the country’s sports minister Matvii Bidnyi said it was “both disappointing and outrageous”.

“The general assembly lifted the suspension in September so we need to respect the democracy of our movement. The majority voted that way, so we need to implement their decision,” said Parsons.

“But I fully understand the disappointment, I understand the different opinions, and especially [those] coming from Ukraine.”

Asked what he would say to Ukrainian athletes, he said: “My message to them is that the best way to show the strength of Ukraine is on the field of play, by winning medals and by making sure their national anthem is played as many times as possible on Italian soil.”

In addition to Ukraine, teams from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland are boycotting Friday’s opening ceremony in Verona in protest against the decision.

Officials from other nations, including the British government, will not attend for the same reason.

The Great Britain team will also not go to the Verona ceremony, but for logistical reasons – a decision that was made some time ago.

Many of the 25-strong British squad – including flagbearers Menna Fitzpatrick and Scott Meenagh – are in competitive action on Saturday morning, several hours’ drive from Verona.

Athletes from Belarus are expected to be in attendance at the opening ceremony, but at the time of BBC Sport’s interview with Parsons, no Russians were due to attend.

“Different countries, National Paralympic Committees, governments, athletes, they have been able to express their views freely, and that’s what we stand for as a democratic organisation,” said Parsons.

“We would like the focus to be more on sport rather than politics and this is what we are trying to do.”

Wine merchant Zyw explained that injury denied him the able-bodied snowboarding career he had craved since taking up the sport at the dry slope in the north of Edinburgh.

“I’ve been a snowboarder all my life,” he said. “Me and my twin brother, we started on a Hillend dry slope when we were 12 or 13.

“I’ve been obsessed with snowboarding my entire life. A knee injury took me away from the slopes and into a career in wine.

“But the fact my diagnosis of being with an incurable degenerative neurological condition has brought me back to my childhood dream of being a snowboarder.”

Zyw only decided to put himself forward for the Games in winter 2024 and has financed competing through crowdfunding and support of his employer.

“There’s like a tragic beauty in this situation,” he added.

“Above all, what I love about being on my board, being on the slopes, being in that competition mind zone is, you know, the disability, the daily challenges of MND, of living with this disease are gone and there’s so much freedom in there.

“When I’m dropping in, when I’m strapping, when I’m in the starting gate, MND is, it might be the reason I’m there, but it couldn’t be further removed from what I’m thinking about in that moment.

“I’m thinking about the course in front of me and how I’m going to rip down it the best I can.”