Winter Paralympics daily guide: Three golds to be decided on Thursday

The Winter Paralympics will feature almost 660 athletes from more than 50 countries competing for 79 gold medals at Milan-Cortina.

Competitors will take part in six sports – Para-Alpine skiing, Para-biathlon, Para-cross-country skiing, Para-ice hockey, Para-snowboard and wheelchair curling.

The action started on Wednesday, 4 March with wheelchair curling action, while the the opening ceremony took place in Verona two days later.

Great Britain’s team features 25 athletes – a mix of seasoned campaigners and talented newcomers.

Neil Simpson and guide Rob Poth won GB’s first medal of the Games on Tuesday, clinching silver in the men’s alpine combined.

Here is your guide to what is happening each day and who to look out for.

Medals: Three

The female skiers take centre stage in Cortina with two giant slalom runs starting at 08:00, with the visually impaired division followed by the standing and seated skiers. Run two follows in the same order from 11:00.

Britain’s Menna Fitzpatrick won silver in the event in Pyeongchang but finished out of the medals in Beijing, where Austrian Veronika Aigner won gold.

Aigner has won three of the four World Cup giant slalom races staged this season, with compatriot Elina Stary taking the other.

Britain’s Hester Poole will be making her Paralympic debut aged 18 with guide Ali Hall.

But she will not be the youngest competitor in the field with American teenager Meg Gustafson, who is guided by her older brother Spencer, only 16.

Four years ago, Ebba Aarsjoe of Sweden was second after the first giant slalom run in the standing division on her Games debut but failed to finish her second run, leaving her bitterly disappointed.

Though she did win gold in both the slalom and super combined and bronze in the downhill, she will be keen to make up for missing out in this event four years ago.

This season she is leading the giant slalom World Cup standings thanks to a pair of wins in St Moritz, but France’s Aurelie Richard and veteran German Andrea Rothfuss will be among those to push her.

The wheelchair curling mixed team round-robin comes to an end. GB finish their campaign against Norway (17:35), who are fourth in the world rankings and include Jostein Stordahl, who is competing at his ninth Games.

Para-ice hockey has been part of the Paralympic programme since 1994, but was originally developed in Sweden in the 1960s.

Previously known as sledge hockey, each team has six players on the ice (including the goalie) at a time.

The players use sledges with two blades and two sticks to push themselves and handle the puck, and games consist of three 15-minute periods.

Great Britain competed when the sport made its Games debut – finishing fourth – but their last appearance was in 2006, when a team featuring Richard Whitehead, who later went on to win Paralympic athletics gold in London and Rio, finished seventh.

Medals: Nine

Like the women’s giant slalom, the men’s event is over two runs (from 08:00 and 11:30) with the visually impaired athletes starting each run, followed by standing and seated athletes.

Austria’s Johannes Aigner will be out to retain his title in the visually impaired event but Italian Giacomo Bertagnolli is the world champion and aiming to go one better than Beijing, where he won silver. Canada’s Kalle Ericsson could also figure.

Alpine combined silver medallist Neil Simpson will be hoping to improve on his fifth place from Beijing alongside guide Rob Poth, Fred Warburton goes with guide James Hannan, and it will be an exciting day for 19-year-old Sam Cozens and his guide Adam Hall, who make their first appearance at the Paralympics in the event.

France’s Arthur Bauchet will be aiming to upgrade his bronze from four years ago in the standing event but his compatriot Jules Segers and Robin Cuche of Switzerland will be among the main challengers.

In the wheelchair curling, the mixed team semi-finals take place at 09:05. It will be a quick turnaround for the semi-final losers, with the bronze-medal match at 17:35.

Briton Scott Meenagh completes his Para-biathlon campaign in the men’s sprint pursuit seated event (qualifying 09:15; final 11:45) in which missed shots mean a 20-second time penalty rather than a penalty loop.

Meenagh was seventh at last year’s World Championships and has had three top-eight finishes over the distance in this year’s World Cup races.

In the visually impaired races, Germany’s Leonie Walter and Oleksandr Kazik of Ukraine will be aiming to add the Paralympic title to their 2025 world crowns.

And in the standing division, Canada will be aiming for a double through Natalie Wilkie and five-time Paralympian Mark Arendz, with both landing World Cup wins this season.

In Para-biathlon, athletes do not carry their rifles during the skiing stage but receive them at the biathlon range.

Competitors with vision impairments use rifles that make a sound to help them aim. Depending on the signal intensity, the noise indicates when the athlete is on target.

Medals: Ten

The Para-snowboarders are back in action for their second event – the banked slalom.

Athletes race against the clock down a winding course with tight turns. Each athlete has two runs and the best decides their final ranking.

Nina Sparks will create history as Britain’s first female Paralympic snowboarder in the women’s LL2 event, which starts the day with run one from 09:00 and run two from 10:50.

Ollie Hill won Britain’s first Paralympic medal in the sport with bronze in this event four years ago, and he will go again in the men’s LL2 (Lower Limb) event from 10:06 and 11:56.

Compatriot James Barnes-Miller, who was ninth in Beijing, will aim to challenge for a medal in the men’s UL (upper limb) event but Chinese riders will again be the ones to watch (09:22 and 11:12).

Briton Matt Hamilton makes his Games debut in the same division while Davy Zyw, who is thought to be the first snowsport athlete with motor neurone disease (MND) to compete at the Games, is scheduled to be in action in his second event.

The women’s Para-Alpine skiing programme comes to an end with the slalom across the three divisions – visually impaired, standing and seated – with run one starting at 08:00 and run two from 12:00.

Briton Menna Fitzpatrick narrowly missed out on a medal in this event in Beijing, finishing fourth as Austria’s Veronika Aigner beat older sister Barbara.

Aigner will be favourite to retain her crown but will need to get the better of the likes of compatriot Elina Stary, who leads the World Cup standings, Italy’s Chiara Mazzel and Alexandra Rexova of Slovakia.

Briton Hester Poole goes in the second of her two events with guide Ali Hall, with the teenager hoping to gain more experience of top-level competition.

In the seated division, Germany’s Anna-Lena Forster will hope to power her way to a third title in a row in the event but faces two tough Chinese rivals in Wenjing Zhang – the 2022 silver medallist – and Sitong Liu.

The wheelchair curling tournament comes to its climax with the mixed team final at 14:05.

The wheelchair curling events at the 2026 Games are taking place at the Cortina Curling Stadium a couple of weeks after it hosted the Olympics, during which Bruce Mouat’s rink won silver in the men’s event.

The venue was originally built in 1955 for the Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956 Olympic Winter Games, and back then staged the opening ceremony and figure skating competitions.

Medals: Ten

Para-skier Neil Simpson and guide Rob Poth will be aiming to finish their Games on a high in the men’s visually impaired slalom on the final day of the Paralympic programme.

Run one starts from 08:00 with visually impaired skiers followed by standing and seated, with run two to come at 11:00 in the same order.

Simpson was ninth in this event in Beijing but he and Poth lie fourth in the World Cup standings.

Giacomo Bertagnolli of Italy is defending champion and would like nothing better than to end his home Games with a medal, but Johannes Aigner of Austria is always a danger. France’s Hyacinthe Deleplace and Poland’s Michal Golas have shown good form in World Cup races this season.

Simpson and Poth will be joined on the start line by fellow Britons Sam Cozens and Adam Hall, and Fred Warburton and James Hannan, with Cozens and Warburton aiming to learn more lessons at their debut Games.

It will also be a learning experience for Dom Allen in the standing division, where France’s Arthur Bauchet will be aiming to retain his title and Russia’s Aleksei Bugaev could be among the big dangers. Norway’s Jesper Pederson will hope for back-to-back wins in the seated event.

The Para-cross-country skiing programme comes to an end with a test for both male and female athletes over 20km.

This is the first time the women have raced over the distance at a Paralympics and it will be a brutal examination for everyone at the end of a busy schedule.

Scott Meenagh goes for GB in the seated division but China’s defending champion Peng Zheng and world championship silver medallist Pavlo Bal of Ukraine could be among the frontrunners.

American Jake Adicoff won silver over the distance in Beijing in the men’s visually impaired event and is the current world champion, with Zebastian Modin of Sweden possibly his main rival.

It would be a major surprise if the United States and Canada do not figure in the Para-ice hockey final at 15:05, which brings the curtain down on the sporting action at these Games.

The two nations have dominated the sport for many years, with the US going for a fourth title in a row on the back of winning their seventh world title last year.

Canada’s most recent Paralympic gold came in 2006 but they did win the 2024 World Championship.

Winter sports attention will switch after these Games to French Alps 2030, which will be the 15th edition of the Winter Paralympics.

They will take place from 1-10 March 2030 – 38 years after the Albertville 1992 Paralympic Winter Games.

France is a Paralympic Games stalwart, having been part of every Winter Games since the first edition in 1976 and also hosting the 2024 Summer Games.

The six sports that were part of this year’s programme will all be in again with plans to split the action between Nice (curling and Para-ice hockey) and the French Alps (Para-Alpine skiing, Para-biathlon, Para-cross-country and Para-snowboard).