Sports Editor- Liv White
The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games concluded this past Sunday, March 15th. The top five scoring countries were China, the United States, Russia, Italy, and Austria. This was a record-breaking Paralympics for many reasons.
The 2026 Paralympics achieved record-breaking viewership with over 414 million video views on the official Paralympics YouTube channel by March 14th. In the U.S. alone, NBC and Peacock averaged 1.4 million viewers for its primetime coverage, making it the most-watched Winter Paralympics show ever. This was a 27% increase over the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics.
In the last few events of the games, the United States was dominant in para ice hockey and cross-country skiing.
The Milano Cortina 2026 Sled Hockey Final featuring the U.S. and Canada was historic for many reasons. With this game, the para ice hockey attendance record was shattered with a new world record of 11,500 fans attending the game. The next closest attendance record was set earlier in the games in the preliminary round with USA vs. Italy, reaching 8,992 in attendance.
The U.S. sled hockey team had a clean sweep of Canada in the games. Jack Wallace scored a hat trick in the 6-2 final that made Paralympic history. When asked about his hat trick, Wallace said: “It doesn’t get much better than that”.
This was the first time that a country had won 5 consecutive Paralympic sled hockey titles. This was also the first time in history that all three Paralympic and Olympic hockey teams swept the tournament.
The U.S. cross-country skiing team also showed out in the final few days of the games. Oksana Masters, the most decorated Winter Paralympian in U.S. history, left Italy with four new gold medals and a bronze in biathlon and cross-country skiing events to bring her career total to 24 medals. Additionally, four-time Paralympian Jake Adicoff, with guises Reid Goble and Peter Wolter, won four gold medals in visually impaired skiing events. Adicoff and Masters, as well as Josh Sweeney and Sydney Peterson, teamed up to win gold in the mixed 4×2.5km relay, defending the U.S. title.
Another top story from these games was Brazil’s first winter Paralympic medal, just a month after their first winter Olympic medal. Cristian Westemaier Ribera won the country’s first Paralympic medal, placing second in the men’s sprint sitting cross-country skiing. Ribera was very emotional after getting silver, saying, “I was crying because I realized that my dream came true. My dream and my family’s. After so much work and effort, I managed to make my dream come true.”
There were, of course, some controversies at this year’s games. The games opened and closed with a boycott of the ceremonies by Ukraine, notably marked by the return of Russia at the Paralympic Games. This was the first time that Russian and Belarusian national symbols were allowed at the games since 2014. As many as 15 other countries skipped the opening ceremony in solidarity with Ukraine. Despite the political conflict, Ukraine finished the games with 19 medals, including three golds.
Additionally, there are growing concerns about the scheduling of the Winter Games because of the weather. Many events saw athletes competing in relatively high temperatures, something which experts attribute to climate change. There was major controversy over the dangerously warm weather leading to schedule changes and raised injury risk because of the soft, slushy snow. Some athletes even competed in shorts, prompting calls to move the games earlier to ensure safe and authentic winter weather conditions. Three-time Paralympic gold medalist Brenna Huckaby of the U.S. said: “I’m here to represent the disability community on a snowboard, and I want to give the best show that I can, but I’m not going to kill myself in the process”.
The next Winter Paralympics is slated to take place in the French Alps in 2030. It is currently scheduled for March 1 to March 10, 2030. Will the International Paralympic Committee take into account the concerns about weather patterns shifting? Only time will tell.