The Milan Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games officially begin this Friday, and HuffPost will be tracking it all.

From medal moments to politically related controversies, we’ll keep you updated throughout the sporting showcase, which marks the 50th anniversary of the first Winter Paralympics.

Competition began Wednesday with events in wheelchair curling and para alpine skiing.

The opening ceremony will take place Friday at the Verona Olympic Arena, the historic Roman amphitheater, featuring performances by The Police drummer Stewart Copeland, Italian house music trio Meduza and more.

The Games will run until March 15 with the closing ceremony at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium, the venue that also hosted the opening ceremony of the 1956 Winter Olympics.

Check out our latest updates here:

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — The Winter Paralympics come to Milan Cortina to celebrate their 50th anniversary, with China looking to extend its dominance as a Paralympic powerhouse and Ukraine and other nations boycotting the opening ceremony over the return of the Russian flag and anthem.

The Games will officially kick off on Friday amid the tensions of the war in the Middle East, which prompted travel difficulties for some of the nations coming to Italy because of a widespread flight disruptions. Iran was due to have one skier at Milan Cortina.

Wheelchair curling launched the competition schedule on Wednesday and the sport was quickly hit by another scandal as two rocks were stolen from the Curling Olympic Stadium. During the Olympics, the Canadian team was accused of cheating.

The Paralympic Games are back in Italy 20 years after Torino 2006. It will be the 14th edition of the Winter Paralympics since the inaugural edition in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden, in 1976. Nearly 200 athletes competed in two sports at the time. Some 660 athletes will participate across the six sports in Italy from Friday through March 15.

The U.S. is sending a 72-member squad to Italy, compared to the 67-member roster it took to Beijing 2022. This year’s delegation includes Oksana Masters, the most decorated American Winter Paralympian, and 16-year-old Para alpine skier Meg Gustafson.

Russian athletes will compete under their own flag at the Paralympics for the first time in more than a decade, and the country’s national anthem could be played for gold medalists for the first time on the stage of a major global sporting event since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Russian flag hasn’t been flown at the Paralympics since the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, while the national anthem has not been heard at any Olympics or Paralympics since the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games.

It could be the first time the anthem is played on the stage of any major global sporting event in four years.

Ukraine was the first to announce that it was planning to boycott the opening ceremony because of Russia, and seven other nations were planning not to attend because of political reasons: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania and the Netherlands.

Some other nations are not attending the opening ceremony to rest their athletes ahead of their competitions, not as a boycott.

Germany criticized the International Paralympic Committee's decision to grant athletes from Russia and Belarus wildcards to participate at Milan Cortina.

“Team Germany Paralympics will not participate in the Parade of Nations during the opening ceremony in Verona. This decision serves both to focus on the upcoming competitions and to respectfully express solidarity with the Ukrainian delegation,” the German team said.

Russian athletes and athletes from Russia’s close ally, Belarus, were awarded slots by the IPC on Feb. 17.

Russian and Belarussian athletes had been competing as individual neutral athletes without their flag, anthem or team colors.

Russian athletes were initially banned because of a state-sponsored doping program, and the sanctions had continued since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Ukraine’s sports minister Matvii Bidnyi had said in a social media post the nation will “not take part in any other official Paralympic events.”

The IPC said most teams were already in Europe for training, but it was helping out others with travel amid the war in the Middle East.

The Milan Cortina Games will give China the chance to establish itself as the nation to beat in both the Summer Paralympics and Winter Paralympics.

The Chinese have topped the medal count in the Summer Paralympics every time since 2004, and four years ago won the Winter Games for the first time with a record-setting performance that included 18 gold medals, 20 silver and 23 bronze.

China had more than 90 Para athletes competing at its home Games in 2022, the most ever by any nation, and is sending another large delegation to Italy this time. It will have 70 athletes competing in Italy, making its largest ever overseas delegation.

Norway is the most successful nation in Winter Paralympics, ahead of the United States and Austria. China is 14th in the all-time medal table but competed in less than half of the Games in which Norway, the U.S. and Austria participated since the first Winter Paralympics in Ornskoldsvik.

China’s push to dominate in the Winter Paralympics got a boost when it was picked to host the Beijing Games, where it won 60 more medals than the single one it had won in PyeongChang in 2018.

The push continued after the home Games, with government funds still being made available for Paralympic programs and changes being promoted on several fronts, including new laws for people with disabilities to encourage their access to sports.

“China developed hundreds of disability sport instructors and coaches with government funding since they started the investment in Paralympic sports. They trained coaches for mass participation and they’ve been training coaches for the elite sports,” said NaRi Shin, an assistant professor of sport management at the University of Michigan.

“They have national Para games and regional games within the nation’s boundary, but also had the Olympic Games in 2008 and the Winter Games in 2022, so they do have maintained the series of competitions so that these athletes who they trained have the experience of competing at the higher level,” said Shin, who is an expert in sport development and on how East Asian countries have invested in the Olympics and Paralympics.

Iran's ongoing conflict with the U.S. and Israel has led to sporting events being postponed in several countries, while competitions elsewhere have been hit by travel disruption, with thousands of flights cancelled in some of the world's busiest transit hubs.

The International Paralympic Committee said it is working to find solutions after several athletes were finding it difficult to travel to the Milano Cortina Winter Paralympic Games due to travel disruptions in several Middle Eastern airports.

"The closure of airspace in the Middle East is impacting the arrival of some stakeholders... we are working diligently with Milano Cortina 2026 to find solutions for those affected," the IPC said on Tuesday.

German athletes will not participate in the teams' parade at the Milano Cortina Paralympics opening ceremony on Friday, in order to express solidarity with Ukraine, the German Paralympic Committee said on Wednesday.

Germany is the latest nation to skip the opening ceremony parade after Russia and Belarus were given participating spots amid the ongoing war in Ukraine following Russia's 2022 invasion. At least eight other teams will boycott the ceremony and other countries will not be sending officials.

"We have decided that Team Germany Paralympics will not participate in the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremony in Verona," Germany's Paralympic Committee said in a statement. "This decision serves both to focus on the upcoming competitions and to respectfully express our solidarity with the Ukrainian delegation."

"Paralympic athletes embody courage, determination, and the ability to overcome challenges. Especially in challenging times, it remains our shared responsibility to visibly embody the Paralympic values and resolutely protect the integrity of the sport."

It said German para athletes would still take part in pre-recorded segments that will be broadcast during the opening ceremony.

The International Paralympic Committee expects a record number of athletes at the Games — more than 600 — with final confirmation due in the coming days.

Among registered competitors, 10 are from Russia and Belarus after the Paralympic committees from both nations had all sanctions against them lifted in September 2025.

It's another scandal for curling, this time at the Paralympics.

Two stones that were going to be used in the wheelchair curling event that began Wednesday at the Milan Cortina Paralympic Games have been stolen. The incident came a couple of weeks after the sport was in the headlines during the Olympics as the Canadian team was accused of cheating.

World Curling told The Associated Press that local authorities were investigating the circumstances that led to the granite rocks being stolen from the Curling Olympic Stadium.

“The spare stones from the set are now being used and have been brought to the same specifications as the rest of the set so there has been no impact on the competition,” World Curling said in an email.

The Milan Cortina Paralympics will officially kick off with the opening ceremony on Friday, but the schedule for wheelchair curling started Wednesday.

The Olympic scandal rocked the usually sedate world of curling — a sport that tends to fall off the radar outside the Olympics.

In the round-robin phase in Cortina, Oskar Eriksson of Sweden accused Marc Kennedy, Canada’s vice skip, of double-touching the rock after initially releasing it down the sheet of ice. Kennedy responded with an outburst full of expletives. Canada was cleared of wrongdoing and eventually won its first gold in men’s curling since the 2014 Sochi Games.

The Canadian women’s team had also been accused of the same double-touch violation.

The Ukrainian team changed a planned uniform for the Paralympic Games that featured a map of the country’s internationally recognised borders, because items related to national identity are forbidden, a top official told Reuters.

An alternative uniform was provided within 24 hours and approved by the International Paralympic Committee, IPC Chief Brand and Communications Officer Craig Spence said.

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