Italy Fields Record Team for Home Paralympics in March

Italy is bringing its biggest Winter Paralympic team ever to compete on home soil next month, and the energy is electric.

The host nation will field athletes across all six sports when the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games kick off March 6. After winning seven medals at Beijing 2022, Italy is aiming higher with home crowds cheering them on.

Para alpine skiers Rene De Silvestro and Chiara Mazzel will carry the Italian flag at the Opening Ceremony. De Silvestro just won gold at the 2025 World Championships and is hungry for his first Paralympic title.

The spotlight will follow Giacomo Bertagnolli, who stunned everyone at Beijing 2022 by winning two golds and two silvers. Competing with his guide skier Andrea Ravelli, Bertagnolli became Italy's most decorated athlete of those Games, winning the super combined and slalom vision impaired events.

Italy has come a long way since 1980, when just one athlete represented the country. By the 1988 Innsbruck Games, the team had grown to over 20 athletes and won its first gold medals.

The 2006 Torino Games marked a breakthrough moment when Silvia Parente became Italy's first female Winter Paralympic champion. Competing at her fourth Paralympics on home snow, she won the giant slalom visually impaired event and added three bronze medals.

For the first time since Vancouver 2010, Italy will compete in wheelchair curling, the sport that made its Paralympic debut in Italy two decades ago. The team also welcomes Emanuel Perathoner, a former Olympian who switched to Para snowboard after a serious training accident.

Why This Inspires

Home advantage carries special meaning in Paralympic sport. Italian athletes will compete in front of family, friends, and a nation that has watched Para sports grow from a single competitor to a record-breaking delegation. The journey from one athlete in 1980 to competing in all six sports shows how far Italy has come in supporting and celebrating Paralympic athletes.

Up to 665 athletes from 50 countries will gather in Milano Cortina, but for Italy, these Games represent something bigger than medals. They're proof that investing in Para sport creates champions who inspire entire nations to dream bigger.