At the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Paralympic Games, the biggest debate surrounding the event has little to do with sport.
This year’s Paralympics represent the first major international sporting event since the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi in which Russia has competed under its national flag. The ban included the recent Olympic Games, where Russia and Belarus were not allowed to send teams.
Six Russian and four Belarusian para-athletes are competing at the Paralympics, marking the end of a 12-year period of exclusion rooted first in state-sponsored doping and then Russia’s war against Ukraine.
