After 'tropical' weather, should the Winter Paralympics be moved?
While many athletes have praised the efforts of organisers to keep the tracks in as good a condition as possible, conditions on Friday during the men's giant slalom events were far from ideal, with British visually impaired skier Fred Warburton describing it as a "bathtub of Slush Puppie". His guide, James Hannan, said: "The snow surface was changing every single gate, so we never knew how the ski was going to react. It certainly proved that way during the sitting event, which followed the visually impaired and standing races: 18 athletes from a field of 37 failed to make it to the bottom of the course.
"The organisers need to look at scheduling with obvious changes of the climate that we're experiencing," said Warburton. "Both the Olympics and Paralympics want to be top spectacles of skiing and allow athletes to put their best work down. "We need to look at the schedule and move it forward in future.
That's way beyond my pay grade, but it seems pretty logical to me. " Warburton's words echoed those of retired American Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy, who this week said in a video on TikTok: "I don't believe that the Paralympics should be happening right now. " Her comments came after the snowboard cross course had to be adjusted following numerous crashes in training, partly because of its design but also the warm conditions.
Fans wearing sunhats and sunglasses take in the action in Cortina So should - or could - the Winter Paralympics take place at a different time? "Changing the winter sport calendar is easier said than done," said International Paralympic Committee (IPC) chief brand and communications officer Craig Spence. "If we were to move forward Olympic events then the Paralympics would follow, but the weeks prior are when the international federations are involved.
"We need to take into account the wishes of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), of the IPC, the winter sport federations, the media rights holders, because some of the major sporting events are coming to a climax during this moment. " In 2023 the IOC said only 10 countries will be able to host snow sports by 2040 because of the impact of climate change. Artificial snow has become the norm at recent Games, and at Milan-Cortina 2026, 1.