Italy Shatters 32-Year Winter Paralympic Record with 14 Medals at Cortina 2026

The Italy Paralympic squad has shattered a 32-year national record at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympics, securing 14 medals through a blend of seasoned champions and emerging talent that has transformed Cortina's iconic slopes into a stage of historic celebration.

Why This Matters

• Record broken: Italy surpassed its previous Paralympic Winter Games medal count of 13, set at Lillehammer 1994, with one day of competition still remaining.

• Home advantage paying off: With 42 athletes competing across six disciplines, Italy has converted local support into tangible results—5 gold, 7 silver, and 2 bronze medals.

• Media visibility gap persists: Despite record coverage, athletes are calling for year-round attention on performance, not just during the Games.

The Gold That Sealed History

Renè De Silvestro carved his name into Italian Paralympic lore by claiming gold in the men's sitting giant slalom on the Olympia delle Tofane piste. The 29-year-old from San Vito di Cadore, a three-time Paralympian and member of the Fiamme Oro sports group (Italy's State Police athletic division), dominated the first run before navigating a nerve-wracking second descent that included a dramatic airborne moment. Sports Minister Andrea Abodi captured the tension on social media, describing how De Silvestro "seemed not to land anymore" mid-jump, yet emerged with an extended lead.

The victory—witnessed by Olympic legends Deborah Compagnoni and Alberto Tomba from a sold-out grandstand packed with De Silvestro's family and supporters—marked Italy's sixth gold of the Games and confirmed the athlete's status as one of the world's premier para alpine skiers. De Silvestro, who transitioned to para-skiing after a 2013 accident left him paralyzed from the waist down, now boasts 13 World Cup victories and 42 podium finishes across his career, including overall World Cup champion honors in 2023 and world championship golds at Maribor 2025 and Espot 2023.

His Cortina triumph adds to a Beijing 2022 haul of silver in giant slalom and bronze in slalom, cementing his reputation in technical disciplines. The silver medal he also secured in the alpine combined sitting at Milano Cortina underscores his versatility on home snow.

Snowboard Duo Delivers Double Joy

On the same day De Silvestro made history, Emanuel Perathoner and Jacopo Luchini delivered a synchronized double gold performance in snowboard banked slalom, an achievement Perathoner described as more meaningful than his solo victory days earlier. "The beautiful thing is that today we won as two," Perathoner said. "The other day I was sad that I won alone, but I'm thrilled with my race. It's even better now that it's shared."

Perathoner, competing in the LL2 category, has become one of Italy's standout stories at these Games. The athlete, who suffered a career-ending crash in 2021 that halted his Olympic trajectory, pivoted to para-snowboarding with Milano Cortina as his stated goal from day one. His two golds validate not just personal ambition but also Italy's investment in adaptive winter sports infrastructure.

Luchini's gold came in the SB-UL banked slalom, rounding out a day that highlighted the depth of Italy's para-snowboarding program. Both athletes credited the team atmosphere and the roaring home crowds at Cortina for amplifying their performances.

What This Means for Italian Sports Culture

The 14-medal benchmark represents more than numerical achievement—it signals a maturation of Italy's Paralympic development pipeline, two decades after the Torino 2006 Games first brought large-scale adaptive winter sports infrastructure to the country. The current delegation of 42 athletes (37 men, 5 women) plus three guides is competing in six disciplines: alpine skiing, snowboard, Nordic skiing, biathlon, wheelchair curling, and para ice hockey.

Other standout contributors include Chiara Mazzel, who earned four medals in four events, and Giacomo Bertagnolli (with guide Andrea Ravelli), who matched that tally with a gold in alpine combined, silver in giant slalom, bronze in downhill, and silver in super-G. Federico Pelizzari also reached the podium in the combined event earlier in the Games.

The success comes amid a broader reckoning about how Paralympic sport is presented to the public. Perathoner, who experienced both Olympic and Paralympic competitions before his accident, pointed out that "outside the events, the Paralympic world gets too little media coverage." He noted that while there are few differences in competitive intensity, the lack of ongoing visibility means the public "doesn't know what's behind it, doesn't know us—and that really bothers me."

The Media Visibility Challenge

Research conducted during the Paris 2024 cycle revealed a stark imbalance: Italy's major evening newscasts dedicated 476 stories to the Olympics versus just 54 to the Paralympics. While Milano Cortina 2026 is receiving unprecedented coverage—RAI is broadcasting up to 300 hours across linear TV and digital platforms, and the European Broadcasting Union is delivering over 900 hours across 27 territories—the disparity in year-round attention remains pronounced.

Athletes have also criticized narrative framing that emphasizes disability over athletic performance, the so-called "supercrip" or pity-driven storytelling that reduces them to inspirational figures rather than elite competitors. The shift toward performance-centered coverage is gradual but evident, with social media allowing athletes to craft more direct narratives.

The coverage gap extends to gender: at Paris 2024, Paralympic men received 61% of event coverage and 57% of athlete-focused stories, a skew more pronounced than in Olympic reporting. Experts note that while Paralympic viewership has grown—global audiences for Paris 2024 increased 40% over Tokyo 2020—broadcast rights remain cheaper, reflecting smaller but rapidly expanding audiences.

Looking Ahead

With the closing ceremony scheduled for tomorrow at the Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy still has opportunities to add to its medal count. The Games, which opened at Verona's UNESCO-listed Arena on March 6, have featured competition across Milano, Cortina, and Tesero.

The mascot Milo, a brown ermine born without a paw, has become an emblem of the resilience athletes like De Silvestro and Perathoner embody—turning adversity into competitive advantage. For Italy, the 14-medal milestone isn't just a statistical footnote; it's a marker of how far the country's adaptive sports ecosystem has evolved since Torino 2006, and a reminder of how much further visibility and infrastructure still need to go beyond the confines of a nine-day event.

The record may stand as the high-water mark for Italian winter Paralympic performance, but the athletes themselves are more focused on what comes next: sustained investment, year-round media attention, and recognition that their sport deserves the same analytical rigor and audience enthusiasm granted to their Olympic counterparts.