The first medals of the Games might be awarded in Cortina with the ladies’s and males’s Para-Alpine snowboarding downhill occasions throughout all three classes – visually impaired, standing and sitting – on the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre.
In the lads’s visually impaired competitors (09:50), Neil Simpson and his brother and guide Andrew might be hoping to make a strong begin to their busy programme in what might be not their strongest occasion, although they’ve had a few World Cup podium finishes this season.
Fred Warburton and James Hannan go in the identical occasion at their first Paralympics.
Warburton is a former decathlete who was identified with a degenerative eye situation six years in the past and solely made his first race begin in February 2025.
The girls’s visually impaired race begins the programme at 08:30. This isn’t Menna Fitzpatrick and guide Katie Guest’s finest occasion, although Fitzpatrick received a world title again in 2019.
Fitzpatrick, who’s Britain’s most adorned Winter Paralympian with six medals, has recovered from a damaged leg and knee harm over the previous 18 months to compete in Italy whereas Guest might be making her Games debut after lacking Beijing following a constructive Covid take a look at.
Simpson, Warburton, Fitzpatrick and all of their rivals within the VI classes will make their method down the course following a guide who communicates directions by way of radio.
Canada’s Mollie Jepsen will defend her girls’s standing title, however it’s the participation of one in every of her principal rivals – Varvara Voronchikhina – that has led to lots of dialogue.
The 23-yr-outdated is without doubt one of the six Russians who will compete beneath their nation’s flags after the International Paralympic Committee lifted its ban on athletes from the 2 nations competing.
The Para-snowboard programme kicks off from 10:00 with snowboard cross qualifying to resolve rankings earlier than Sunday’s head-to-head elimination rounds.
Athletes race down a specifically constructed course with options like banks, rollers and jumps. Each athlete has two runs with the most effective deciding their last rating.
Scotland’s Davy Zyw, who’s considered the primary snowsport athlete with motor neurone illness (MND) – a degenerative neurological situation – to ever compete on the Games, will compete within the males’s UL (higher limb) occasion from 10:21.
Also within the occasion is James Barnes-Miller, who’s showing at his third Games, whereas Ollie Hill goes within the males’s LL2 (decrease limb) from 11:03.
On day one of many Para-biathlon occasions, Scott Meenagh goes in what might be his strongest occasion – the seated dash over 7.5km (09:35) – with excessive hopes of a prime-5 end.
At the wheelchair curling, the blended doubles continues with GB dealing with world champions Japan (13:35), and it is also the opening day of the blended staff occasion.
GB’s Hugh Nibloe, Karen Aspey, Austin McKenzie, Graeme Stewart and Stewart Pimblett begin towards Slovakia (08:35) who simply missed out on a medal on the final Worlds, earlier than taking up the USA (17:35).
Elsewhere, the Para-ice hockey will get beneath method with the massive two – USA and Canada – up towards Italy (16:05) and Slovakia (19:35).
