665 athletes will compete from 56 different nations across six sports.

While the 2026 Winter Olympics are over, the action at Milano-Cortina is still going on. On Mar. 06, the 2026 Winter Paralympics officially started, allowing impaired athletes from all across the world to represent their country and compete until Mar. 15.

Some 665 athletes were expected to participate in 79 medal events across six disciplines: para alpine skiing, para cross-country skiing, para biathlon, para snowboard, para ice hockey and wheelchair curling.

Fifty-six nations are represented, including Russia and Belarus; a controversial decision contested by multiple countries. As a sign of protest, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland and Ukraine boycotted the opening ceremony.

The Canadian Paralympic Committee also contested the decision in an official statement.

To compete, a winter Paralympic athlete must be eligible for one of these impairment types: Impaired Muscle Power, Impaired Passive Range of Motion, Limb Deficiency (amputation), Leg Length Difference , Hypertonia, Ataxia, Athetosis, and Vision Impairment.

To determine who competes against whom, the Paralympic committees use a classification system. To get accurately classified, athletes go through an evaluation that groups them into their “sport class,” according to their physical, intellectual or sensorial function in a sport.

Classifications are recognizable by a code composed of letters and numbers. The letters show the impairment type and the number the severity (the lower the number, the more severe the impairment). The numbers go from 1 to 9 for standing classes, 10 to 12 for sitting classes, and either 1 to 4 or 1 to 3 for the visually impaired classes. Para ice hockey and wheelchair curling only have one class each and therefore do not have codes.

LW is the “Locomotor Winter” class, either for athletes with a single-leg impairment or for sitting athletes with the most severe trunk impairment.

B is for athletes with a visual impairment in para cross-country skiing and biathlon. They compete with a guide and, in biathlon, and use an auditory targeting system. AS is another vision class specific to para alpine skiing. Athletes ski with a guide skiing ahead of them using a radio headset.

SB-LL is a para snowboard class for athletes with lower-limb impairments. SB-UL is for snowboarders with an upper-limb impairment; there is no number because it is a single category.

According to Canadian alpine skier Sierra Smith and guide for para-Olympian Kalle Eriksson, impairments can make the overall experience of a sport very different.

“Before, I skied alone. I didn’t have to talk to anybody while I was skiing down the race course, so it was all by myself in my own head. […] Having someone following me down the race course, communicating […] “I can’t get down the mountain without her help.”

Eriksson became legally blind following a case of solar retinopathy in high school, but now, in their Paralympic debut, Smith and he won a silver medal in their first race.

“I’m very honoured with the medal that Sierra [Smith] and I won here the other day, but I’m not gonna let that get to my head because anything can happen in ski racing and so we’ll go out and we’ll do our best and take each day as it comes.”

Smith used to ski for Team Canada NextGen but retired in 2019 after a leg injury. She became Eriksson’s guide in 2023 after meeting him while helping coach a team he was part of, and the pair have been podium regulars on the international circuit ever since. Picking the sport back up competitively as a guide is not something she had expected.

“Having Kalle kind of let me tag along on his journey has been super cool and coming back to the sport and making it a team sport. It’s something I never thought I’d be doing, but I’m so happy I did and it’s allowed me to kind of have another chance at my dreams, but alongside a partner, which I could not ask for anything better.”

“I hope that it can continue to keep growing because para sports are incredible, and I want more people to know about them, and the incredible things that her athletes are capable of,” says Eriksson.