The Winter Paralympic Games opened in Verona with Russian and Belarusian athletes marching behind national flags for the first time since bans followed the invasion of Ukraine. The moment drew silence from sections of the crowd while volunteers carrying the Ukrainian flag received loud applause inside the Arena di Verona.
The ceremony marked the start of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympics and the fiftieth anniversary of the Games. The event took place inside the Arena di Verona, a Roman amphitheatre that dates back two millennia. Music, dance and visual displays formed the core of the opening programme while delegations entered the arena.
Athletes from Russia and Belarus appeared during the parade of nations with their flags visible above the delegation. The Russian flag had not appeared at a Paralympic Games since the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014. Restrictions followed a state doping scandal and later sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine.
Reaction inside the arena remained restrained when the Russian athletes walked onto the stage. Witnesses reported limited applause. Members of the Russian delegation waved flags and cheered. Minutes later, volunteers carried the Ukrainian flag into the stadium and the audience responded with strong applause.
Seven nations, including Finland, declined to attend the ceremony in protest against the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes. Ukraine joined the boycott alongside several European states and Canada. Ukrainian athletes remained away from the arena and instead joined a broadcast event organised by national television in Kyiv.
The International Paralympic Committee granted entry through special invitations. Six Russian athletes received places across alpine skiing, cross country skiing and snowboarding. Four athletes from Belarus entered cross country skiing.
Without those invitations, competitors from both nations would not appear at the Games. International sport federations kept earlier restrictions that blocked Russian and Belarusian athletes from qualification events in several winter sports.
Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee, addressed the ceremony and avoided direct reference to political disputes. He focused on the role of sport during conflict.
“Four years ago I said I was horrified at what was happening in the world. The situation has not improved,” Parsons said in his speech. “In a world where countries are known by the names of their leaders, I prefer to know them by the names of their athletes.”
He continued: “Sport offers another perspective. Here athletes compete with ferocity but respect for each other and the rules of sport.”
The ceremony also unfolded against a wider international crisis. Missile strikes in the Middle East affected travel across the region during the days before the Games. The International Paralympic Committee said it monitored the situation while assessing travel and logistics for teams.
Despite the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, athletes from the United States and Israel remain eligible to compete at the Paralympic Games.
A joint military strike by the two countries against Iran on 28 February took place during the period covered by the Olympic Truce, a United Nations resolution that calls for a halt to hostilities during the Olympic and Paralympic cycle.
The International Olympic Committee has described the truce as “aspirational and non-binding” and stated it has no authority to enforce it, leaving decisions on sanctions outside its remit. As a result, sporting bodies have not taken disciplinary action against American or Israeli athletes.
Olympic officials also stress that participation depends on compliance with the Olympic Charter rather than military activity by governments. Sanctions in sport usually follow attempts to control another country’s sporting organisations or breaches of competition rules, conditions the IOC says do not apply in the current conflict.
The conflict prevented Iran’s sole competitor from travelling to Italy. Cross country skier Aboulfazl Khatibi Mianaei remained in Iran because air travel from the region faced disruption.
At the same time, Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza has drawn allegations of war crimes and even genocide in proceedings before the International Court of Justice, further intensifying calls from campaigners to suspend Israel from the Olympic movement.
In 2024, when some groups demanded Israel’s exclusion from the Paris Games over the Gaza war, IOC president Thomas Bach responded that Israel had not tried to annex Palestine’s sporting bodies or bring them under Israeli control, so it had not violated the Olympic Charter – a rationale explicitly used to justify Russia’s ban but not applied to Israel in the same way
More than 660 athletes from 56 nations registered for the Games. Competitors will take part in six sports including alpine skiing, cross country skiing, biathlon, snowboarding, wheelchair curling and para ice hockey. Events will take place across venues in the Italian Alps until 15 March.
The opening concluded with the lighting of two Paralympic flames, one in Milan and one in Cortina. The action marked the formal start of competition across the alpine venues.
Athletes will begin racing the next morning with alpine skiing events for visually impaired competitors. Wheelchair curling matches started earlier in the day as teams opened the round robin stage.
HT
