A guide to the six sports at the Milan Cortina Winter Paralympics

MILAN (AP) — The Winter Paralympics officially start on Friday, with the opening ceremony in Verona, Italy.

With 665 Para athletes and 79 sets of medals to be awarded, Milan Cortina will feature a record number of athletes and medals.

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They will compete across six sports: Para alpine skiing, Para biathlon, Para cross-country skiing, Para ice hockey, Para snowboard and wheelchair curling.

In the skiing sports — Para alpine skiing, Para biathlon, Para cross-country skiing — athletes compete in one of three categories: standing, sitting (on a sit-ski or monoski) or vision impaired (who race following a guide connected via radio).

Guides also receive medals.

Within each of these three categories skiers compete in different divisions depending on their functional ability. A results calculation system determines the factored time of each athlete, which allows athletes from different divisions to race against each other.

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Here’s a look at the sports:

Para alpine skiing

Introduced at the first Winter Paralympics in 1976, it includes five events: slalom, giant slalom, super-G, downhill and super combined.

There are 30 medal events — 15 for men and 15 for women.

In the sitting category, athletes use a specialized monoski, a seat mounted on a single ski with a shock absorber that helps with riding on uneven terrain and making turns.

In Para biathlon and Para cross-country, the sit-ski is a sitting device mounted on a pair of cross country skis.

Para alpine skiing will take place on the Olympia delle Tofane course in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the same iconic course that held the women’s alpine skiing at the recently concluded Winter Olympics.

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Para biathlon

Combines the strength and endurance of cross-country skiing with the precision and composure of target shooting.

There are three events in each class — 7.5-kilometer sprint, 12.5-kilometer individual and sprint pursuit — and men and women compete in separate races, for a total of 18 medal events.

The ski course is tackled several times and between each lap athletes shoot at five metal targets placed 10 meters away. For each missed shot…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/guide-six-sports-milan-cortina-120010578.html

Author : DANIELLA MATAR

Publish date : 2026-03-06 12:00:00

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