Overview
- Organizers staged the closing ceremony in Cortina with attendance limited to the Cortina and Tesero clusters, while Ukraine confirmed a boycott and Milan-based teams such as Germany’s para ice hockey squad could not take part.
- Athlete-led protests against the return of Russian and Belarusian teams under their flags persisted throughout the Games, including visible podium gestures by Germany’s Linn Kazmaier and guide Florian Baumann.
- Unseasonably warm temperatures produced slushy courses across events, intensifying calls from athletes and coaches to shift future Winter Paralympics earlier in the season.
- IPC president Andrew Parsons told ZDF there will be follow-up discussions on scheduling and climate resilience as winter sports reckon with warming conditions.
- Events were split across Milan, Cortina d'Ampezzo and Tesero with three Paralympic villages, limiting cross-team interaction, while the program featured 79 competitions in six sports with about 665 athletes from 45 countries and a new mixed-doubles wheelchair curling event.