The 2026 Winter Paralympics are not just another sporting event. They represent 50 years of athletic courage, human determination, and a global community that has been growing stronger with every passing Games. Milano Cortina 2026 is already writing its own chapter in that history, and if you are planning to follow along or attend in person, this guide covers everything you need to know: from buying tickets and understanding wheelchair curling to watching on TV and meeting the mascot who has already captured hearts around the world.
What Are the Paralympic Winter Games and Why Do They Matter in 2026
The Paralympic Winter Games are an international multi-sport competition for elite athletes with physical and visual impairments, governed by the International Paralympic Committee. They run parallel to the Olympic Winter Games, using the same host cities and many of the same venues. What makes 2026 particularly significant is the milestone it marks. This edition of the Games commemorates 50 years since the very first Winter Paralympics, held in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, in 1976, when fewer than 200 athletes from just 18 countries took part. Half a century later, over 665 athletes from more than 50 countries are competing for 79 gold medals across six sports in the mountains and arenas of northern Italy.
For anyone who has watched the Paralympics even once and felt that particular mix of awe and emotion that the Games reliably produce, 2026 feels like a landmark edition. The opening ceremony took place on March 6 at the Arena di Verona, one of Italy’s most ancient and iconic amphitheaters, built in the first century. Watching Para athletes parade through a Roman amphitheater under Italian lights is the kind of image that stays with you, and it set the tone for a Games that organizers have described as the most beautiful Paralympic Winter Games in history.
2026 Winter Paralympics Dates and Venues: Three Clusters Across Italy
The Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games run from March 6 to March 15, 2026. Competition takes place across three geographic clusters spread through northern Italy.
The Milan cluster serves as the urban heart of the Games and hosted the opening ceremony at the Arena di Verona, located in the nearby city of Verona. The Cortina d’Ampezzo cluster sits in the Italian Dolomites and hosts alpine skiing and wheelchair curling at the historic Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium, a venue that originally staged the opening ceremony of the 1956 Olympic Winter Games and has seen decades of sporting history. The Val di Fiemme cluster, set in the Trentino mountains, serves as the backdrop for biathlon and cross-country skiing competitions.
The closing ceremony will take place on March 15, fittingly at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium, bringing the Games full circle back to the same venue that opened the 1956 Olympics 70 years earlier.
2026 Winter Paralympics Tickets: How to Get Them and What They Cost
One of the most common questions people search for when the Games begin is how to buy tickets, and the good news for the 2026 Winter Paralympics is that organizers made accessibility a central part of the ticketing strategy.
Tickets for all six sports start from EUR 15, and the organizers confirmed that 89 percent of all available tickets are priced below EUR 35. For younger fans, tickets for spectators aged under 14 years start from EUR 10. This pricing model reflects a genuine effort to make the Games accessible not just in terms of physical access but financial access as well, something that has not always been a given at major international sporting events.
Tickets can be purchased through the official ticketing website connected to the Milano Cortina 2026 organizing committee. The organizers also announced a donation initiative to support distribution of tickets to fans and local communities in both Milan and the mountain territories, showing that inclusion off the field of play was taken as seriously as inclusion on it.
Given that the Games are currently underway as of early March 2026, availability for certain sessions may be limited. The Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium wheelchair curling sessions and alpine skiing at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre have drawn particularly strong interest. If you are attending, checking the official website for last-minute availability is worth doing, since cancellations and returned tickets do appear throughout the event window.
From a personal standpoint, attending the Paralympic Winter Games is an experience that is genuinely different from most major sporting events. The atmosphere tends to be intimate, the access to athletes is often more open than at the Olympics, and you leave with a much broader sense of what human performance actually means. The EUR 15 to EUR 35 price point makes that experience available to people who might not be able to afford Olympic ticket prices, and that feels right.
Six Sports at the 2026 Winter Paralympics: What to Watch
The competition program at Milano Cortina 2026 covers six disciplines, each of which rewards a closer look.
Para alpine skiing brings athletes down steep slopes at speeds that would make most people grip a handrail, competing across sitting, standing, and visually impaired categories. The Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo is the same course that hosted the men’s downhill at the 1956 Winter Olympics and the women’s alpine events during the 2026 Winter Olympics just weeks earlier.
Para biathlon combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting, requiring a combination of cardiovascular endurance and the kind of stillness that seems impossible after pushing your body to its limit. The Val di Fiemme competition area in Tesero hosts these events across the sprint, pursuit, and relay formats.
Para cross-country skiing covers both individual and relay formats across sitting, standing, and visually impaired categories. Athletes compete over courses that test endurance and technique equally, and the relay events in particular produce some of the most emotional moments in Paralympic sport.
Para ice hockey, widely known as sled hockey, is played on sleds equipped with two skate blades and involves players using two shortened sticks both to propel themselves and to handle the puck. The United States has historically dominated this discipline, and the 2026 competition is expected to deliver the intense matchups that fans of the sport have come to expect.
Para snowboard made its Paralympic debut at Sochi 2014 and has grown rapidly, attracting some of the most visually exciting competitors in the field. Athletes compete on banked slalom and snowboard cross courses.
Wheelchair curling rounds out the program and deserves a section of its own.
Wheelchair Curling at the 2026 Paralympics: Rules, History, and Why It Is One of the Most Strategic Sports You Will Ever Watch
Wheelchair curling has been part of the Paralympic program since Torino 2006, and it holds a particular place in the Winter Games because it is a sport where strategy, precision, and communication matter as much as physical strength. At Milano Cortina 2026, the sport returns to Italy exactly 20 years after its Paralympic debut on Italian ice, and it has brought something new with it: the debut of the wheelchair curling mixed doubles event, which is contested at the Games for the first time in Paralympic history.
The mixed doubles gold medal game was scheduled for March 11, with the mixed team gold medal game following on March 14.
Understanding the rules makes watching the sport significantly more rewarding. In wheelchair curling, players deliver a 19.96-kilogram granite stone down a sheet of ice toward a circular target called the house. The goal is to get your team’s stones as close as possible to the center of the house, known as the tee, while preventing your opponents from doing the same. Each team plays eight rounds, called ends, with each player delivering two stones per end for a total of eight stones per team in the mixed team event.
The most important distinction between wheelchair curling and the able-bodied version of the sport is that there is no sweeping. In standard curling, players with brooms sweep the ice vigorously after a stone is released to influence its speed and direction, which introduces a second layer of real-time decision-making after the throw. In wheelchair curling, once the stone leaves a player’s hand or delivery stick, it goes where it goes. No corrections are possible. Every placement decision must be made in advance, every calculation must account for ice conditions, curl behavior, and opponent positioning without any safety net. This transforms wheelchair curling into something closer to chess on ice, where guards, draws, and takeouts all carry heightened consequences.
Players deliver the stone either directly from the hand or using an extender, a long stick that allows them to reach the playing surface from their seated position. Teammates may optionally stabilize each other’s wheelchairs during delivery for greater accuracy.
The new mixed doubles format at Milano Cortina 2026 adds another layer of tactical complexity. With only two players and five stones per team per end, every single stone carries more weight. Each end also begins with one stone from each team already positioned on the sheet, which creates strategic pressure from the very first throw. Teams also have one power play available per game, allowing them to reposition those pre-placed stones to open up different angles, and timing when to use a power play is one of the most consequential decisions in the match.
Canada has historically been the dominant force in Paralympic wheelchair curling, winning gold at Turin 2006, Vancouver 2010, and Sochi 2014. But the field has grown deeper and more competitive over the 20 years of the sport’s Paralympic history. China, skipped by Haitao Wang, claimed gold at the 2025 World Wheelchair Curling Championship with a dominant performance, making them the team to beat heading into Milano Cortina 2026. South Korea tops the world rankings in mixed doubles and took gold at the 2024 World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, making them a serious contender in that discipline’s historic first Paralympic medal event.
All 81 wheelchair curling matches at Milano Cortina 2026 take place at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium, which also hosts the Games closing ceremony. The venue uses 132 handcrafted granite stones sourced from Ailsa Craig, a volcanic island off the coast of Scotland whose granite has been used in curling for well over a century.
If you have never watched wheelchair curling before, consider giving it time. The first few ends can feel slow if you do not yet understand the strategic patterns, but once you start recognizing what guards are being set, why a team is choosing a draw over a takeout, and how each shot either opens or closes the board, the tension becomes absorbing in a way that is hard to step away from.
The 2026 Winter Paralympics Mascot: Meet Milo, the Stoat Who Lives by the Words Obstacles Are Trampolines
Milo is the official mascot of the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games, and he might be one of the most thoughtfully designed Paralympic mascots in the history of the Games.
Milo is a young brown stoat, a small carnivorous mammal in the weasel family native to Europe, Asia, and North America, including the Italian Alps. He works alongside his sister Tina, who is the Olympic mascot, making them the first sibling mascot pair in Games history. Their names came from the host cities: Milo is short for Milano, while Tina is a diminutive of Cortina.
What makes Milo specifically meaningful as a Paralympic mascot is his backstory. Milo was born without a right leg and learned over time to walk, run, and hop using his tail. His guiding philosophy, printed in his official biography, is the sentence: obstacles are trampolines. That framing captures something genuine about the Para athlete experience, the idea that a limitation becomes not a ceiling but a launching point, and the organizers deserve credit for writing that into the mascot’s character rather than leaving him as a generic cheerful animal.
Milo was designed by students from the Istituto Comprensivo of Taverna in Calabria, chosen through a process that involved over 1,600 entries from primary and secondary school students across Italy. The final design was selected through a public vote after the Italian Ministry of Education collaborated with the organizing committee to gather ideas. Milo and Tina were unveiled at the Sanremo Music Festival in 2024.
Stoats carry their own symbolic weight as mascot choices. They are known for their agility, speed, and adaptability, and their fur changes color with the seasons, shifting from brown and white in summer to entirely white in winter. That capacity to adapt to changing environments resonates with both the athletic theme of the Games and the broader message of the Paralympic movement. Milo and Tina are accompanied by six small anthropomorphic snowdrop flowers called the Flo, designed by students at the Istituto Comprensivo Sabin di Segrate. The Flo symbolize hope and resilience.
Stoat plushies and merchandise became genuinely sought-after items during the Olympic Games, and the same enthusiasm has followed into the Paralympics. If you are attending in person and want a Milo plush, buying early rather than waiting until the final days of the Games is advisable.
2026 Winter Paralympics TV Schedule: How to Watch in the United States and Around the World
For viewers in the United States, NBCUniversal is delivering what it has described as its most accessible Paralympic broadcast in history, and the coverage details back up that claim.
The Opening Ceremony aired live on March 6 at 2 p.m. ET on USA Network, with live streaming available simultaneously on Peacock and the NBC Olympics digital platforms. A replay of the Opening Ceremony aired on NBC in primetime on Saturday, March 7 at 8 p.m. ET for viewers who missed the live event.
Throughout the Games, live coverage is spread across three linear channels. USA Network carries event coverage throughout weekdays, CNBC broadcasts several hours of Paralympic programming particularly on weekends, and NBC airs daytime coverage on weekends along with primetime highlight programming. NBC is presenting a record number of hours of Winter Paralympic coverage compared to any previous Games, a development that matters for the long-term visibility and growth of the Paralympic movement.
Peacock serves as the streaming home for every event, with all competition available live and on demand. This means that regardless of where you are in your viewing day, you can catch any sport without waiting for a broadcast window. Peacock’s coverage also includes full-event replays, vertical video highlights optimized for mobile, an interactive schedule that lets fans plan their viewing day, and a Discovery Multiview feature that simultaneously shows multiple live events so you can monitor several competitions at once.
On the accessibility front, NBCUniversal has introduced American Sign Language coverage for the Paralympic Opening Ceremony on streaming platforms for the first time. Closed captioning is available for all Paralympic events across NBC and USA Network and for all digital livestreams on Peacock, NBCSports.com, and the NBC Sports app. Audio description, which provides voiced descriptions of Paralympic scenes and context for viewers who are blind or have low vision, is available for all coverage on NBC, USA Network, and CNBC. These are not small additions. They represent a meaningful step toward making the Paralympics accessible to the full range of people who would benefit from watching.
For viewers outside the United States, the official Olympics.com platform and its app provide live streaming coverage in many territories. Individual national broadcasters will also carry the Games in various markets, and the official Paralympic Games website lists country-by-country broadcast partners.
NBCParalympics.com functions as the digital hub for results, schedules, medal counts, and athlete profiles throughout the Games for American audiences.
Key Athletes and Storylines to Follow at Milano Cortina 2026
The 2026 Winter Paralympics feature several storylines worth following regardless of which sport you are most drawn to.
In Para alpine skiing, the Tofane course in Cortina is renowned as one of the most demanding on the circuit, and the combination of speed events and technical disciplines produces a wide spread of medal contenders. Ten nations are represented across the top tier of the Para alpine rankings, making predictions difficult and finals compelling.
In Para biathlon, athletes competing in the sitting, standing, and visually impaired classifications each produce their own drama, and the 7.5km sprint events that opened competition on the first full day of the Games drew strong early viewership.
In wheelchair curling, the debut of mixed doubles adds historic significance to every session. The fact that three different nations have won the World Championship in wheelchair curling mixed doubles over the past three years suggests that the first Paralympic gold medal in this event will not be decided until the last stone of the final is delivered.
For the United States Para ice hockey team, Milano Cortina 2026 represents another opportunity to defend its reputation as the world’s most successful program in the discipline. Declan Farmer, one of the most decorated Para ice hockey players in American history, is among the names to watch.
The 50th Anniversary of the Winter Paralympics: Why This Edition Carries Extra Weight
The first Winter Paralympics were held in 1976. That was a single edition, modest in scale, held in a Scandinavian city that most of the world had never heard of. The athletes who competed there had no professional training infrastructure, no global broadcast deal, and no guarantee that the event would ever happen again. They competed anyway.
Fifty years later, the Milano Cortina 2026 Games involve over 665 athletes from more than 50 countries, 79 medal events, three competition clusters spread across a major European nation, global broadcast coverage reaching hundreds of millions of households, and a mascot designed by schoolchildren who will grow up watching the athletes they helped represent. That arc of growth is worth stopping to appreciate, not just as a sports story but as a story about how human beings can build institutions that outlast their founders and grow beyond what those founders could have imagined.
The Games mark the 50th anniversary explicitly in their programming and ceremonies. Italy, hosting the Winter Paralympics for the second time after Torino 2006, has been invested in carrying that history with appropriate weight while also pushing the event forward into new territory, including the mixed doubles wheelchair curling debut, the most accessible broadcast package in Paralympic history, and an opening ceremony that used one of the world’s great ancient performance spaces to open a competition that is, by any measure, one of the world’s great athletic competitions.
Frequently Asked Questions About the 2026 Winter Paralympics
When are the 2026 Winter Paralympics? The Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games run from March 6 to March 15, 2026. Wheelchair curling mixed doubles competition began on March 4, two days before the formal opening ceremony.
Where are the 2026 Winter Paralympics held? The Games take place across three clusters in northern Italy: Milan (hosting ceremonies), Cortina d’Ampezzo (alpine skiing and wheelchair curling), and Val di Fiemme in Tesero (biathlon and cross-country skiing).
How much do 2026 Winter Paralympics tickets cost? Tickets start from EUR 15, with 89 percent of all available tickets priced below EUR 35. Tickets for spectators aged under 14 start from EUR 10.
Where can I buy 2026 Winter Paralympics tickets? Tickets are available through the official ticketing website at the Milano Cortina 2026 organizing committee’s official platform.
What sports are in the 2026 Winter Paralympics? The six sports are Para alpine skiing, Para biathlon, Para cross-country skiing, Para ice hockey (sled hockey), Para snowboard, and wheelchair curling.
What is the 2026 Winter Paralympics mascot? Milo, a young brown stoat born without a right leg, is the Paralympic mascot. His sister Tina, a lighter-colored stoat, is the Olympic mascot. Both were designed by students from the Istituto Comprensivo of Taverna in Calabria.
What is wheelchair curling and how does it differ from regular curling? Wheelchair curling uses the same granite stones and target scoring system as regular curling but has no sweeping, meaning stones cannot be influenced after release. All throws are made from a seated position using a hand delivery or an extender stick. Teams must be mixed gender in the four-person event.
Is wheelchair curling mixed doubles new to the Paralympics? Yes. The wheelchair curling mixed doubles event makes its Paralympic debut at Milano Cortina 2026, with the first gold medals in this discipline awarded on March 11, 2026.
How can I watch the 2026 Winter Paralympics on TV? In the United States, coverage airs on NBC, USA Network, and CNBC, with all events streaming live and on demand on Peacock. The Opening Ceremony aired live on March 6 on USA Network at 2 p.m. ET.
Can I stream the 2026 Winter Paralympics? Yes. Every event streams live and on demand on Peacock for US viewers. International viewers can access coverage through Olympics.com in eligible territories and through national broadcasters.
How many athletes are competing in the 2026 Winter Paralympics? Around 665 athletes from more than 50 countries are competing for 79 gold medals across six sports.
What is the motto of the 2026 Winter Paralympics? The Games carry the broader Milano Cortina 2026 message of Life in Motion, which reflects both athletic movement and the philosophy of adaptive sports.
Why is 2026 a significant year for the Winter Paralympics? The 2026 Games mark the 50th anniversary of the first Winter Paralympics, held in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, in 1976. The growth from fewer than 200 athletes at 18 nations to over 665 athletes at more than 50 nations represents one of the most significant expansions in the history of international sport.
Final Thoughts: Why the 2026 Winter Paralympics Deserve Your Attention
There is sometimes a perception that the Paralympics are a lesser version of the Olympics, something to acknowledge but not to fully engage with. That perception is wrong, and anyone who watches more than five minutes of competition at the actual level of these Games understands why. Para alpine skiers descend the same Cortina course at speeds that demand everything from the human body. Wheelchair curling players spend weeks studying ice conditions and stone behavior to gain the margins that determine medals. Para ice hockey is physically intense in a way that surprises first-time viewers every time.
What the 2026 Winter Paralympics offer is not a secondary sporting event but a parallel one, with its own history, its own rivalries, its own moments of heartbreak and triumph, and its own cast of athletes who have committed years of their lives to competing at the highest level in their sport. The 50th anniversary edition, hosted in Italy, broadcast more widely than any previous Winter Paralympics, with ticket prices designed to bring in audiences rather than keep them out, is as good an entry point as any into one of sport’s genuinely underappreciated institutions.
Watch a wheelchair curling match and then try to explain why you were so focused on the placement of a single stone in the seventh end. Watch a Para alpine run at Cortina and think about what speed feels like without the option to stop exactly the way you planned. Watch the closing ceremony at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium on March 15 and consider that the same venue hosted the opening of the 1956 Winter Olympics, 70 years before the athletes standing on that ice were born.
The Games are happening. They are worth your time.
