Skiing in slush. Snowboarding through sticky patches. Hyperventilating in the heat. Paralympians at the 2026 Games have described all of those scenarios playing out in the warm conditions in Milano Cortina.
There are also a few common terms repeated in most of the articles and announcements about the 2026 Milano-Cortino Paralympic Games so far: “challenging,” “extremely difficult” and “brutal” conditions.
“These games need to be held a month earlier,” Canada’s Kurt Oatway said Monday after a disappointing run on the Para alpine skiing course.
“Every year it’s soft, it’s slush. It’s spring skiing, and that’s not really real ski racing.”
Warmer weather has been a logistical issue at the last several Winter Olympics — to the point that the IOC is mulling moving the Olympic and Paralympic Games a month earlier. And there have long been calls to reschedule or merge the Paralympics for this reason, among others, including increased visibility for Paralympians.
But those calls have grown louder as this year’s athletes contend with some of the mildest March conditions yet.
Kurt Oatway shares his thoughts on the Para alpine skiing course conditions.
“I don’t believe that the Paralympics should be happening right now,” U.S. Para snowboarder Amy Purdy said in a TikTok video Sunday with nearly 300,000 views.
The Paralympics take place in March, which is now essentially spring in many countries that have hosted or could host the Winter Games, which makes it difficult for any athlete competing in outdoor winter sports, according to Purdy.
And that’s even more of a challenge if you use prosthetics or are visually impared, she added.
“You have athletes with disabilities who have trained their entire lives to showcase their abilities and what the possibilities are, just like the Olympians do. But they show up in the worst conditions ever,” Purdy said.
“Snow gets so soft and so slushy, it grabs onto your snowboard, it grabs onto your skis. Imagine being a cross-country skiier, and not having arms, and getting stuck in slush.”
‘Just makes it so hard’
A number of athletes and coaches so far have pointed out that conditions at the 2026 Games are less than optimal.
On Sunday, as temperatures reportedly reached around 9 C at the Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre, only 11 out of 23 skiiers successfully finished the men’s downhill sitting course that was marred by crashes in the soft conditions.
“When the snow is soft, it just makes it so hard,” New Zealand Para alpine downhill sitting head coach Daniel Bogue told local media Sunday after defending champ Corey Peters placed fifth.
“When you put your ski in the turn you expect something to come back and get a reaction, but with how soft and slushy it is we are not getting the same reaction,” Peters told SportzHub.
And on Saturday, athletes were forced to adjust to last-minute changes at the Cortina Para Snowboard Park cross course after a number of injuries during training crashes.
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation, in a statement to The Athletic, cited both construction and “snow-condition challenges, particularly due to the late‑season timing of the Paralympic Games at this altitude.”
And it’s not just the snow — the heat also affects your breathing, which is critical in biathlon, said U.K. Para biathlete Scott Meenagh Saturday after taking five shooting penalties and finishing 18th in the 12.5-kilometre event.
“I found it really challenging physically on the range today, with a very high heart rate on a very hot day,” he told Paralympics GB.
“There was a lot of heat, and it invokes a little bit of hyperventilation.”
Climate change shrinking options
Last month, athletes at the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games cited the slush and soft ice after suffering more falls, slips and crashes than usual. Speedskaters and figure skaters complained about the “soft and slushy” ice conditions, for instance.
And Swedish cross-country skiier Ebba Andersson went head over heels mid-race in the slushy snow on Feb. 14, losing a ski — and then her trainer also fell in the slush while trying to bring her another.
“Everyone is showing how difficult the conditions are today,” a commentator said as the trainer chasing after Andersson with a spare ski went down sideways and rolled.
Sweden’s Ebba Andersson crashes and loses a ski mid-race, causing her coach to attempt to get her a new ski.
But what are the options?
Climate change is rapidly shrinking the number of reliable hosts for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, say Canadian researchers studying how to adapt the Games.
Their study published in January builds on recent research co-authored by the University of Waterloo’s Daniel Scott that suggested about half of a possible 93 locations could reliably host the Olympics in February by mid-century if global warming continues on its current trajectory.
For the Paralympics, which are typically held in March, the outlook is far worse — only 22 locations are considered reliable hosts by 2050, down to 16 by 2080.
“We have to prioritize solutions to the much greater risk facing the Paralympics,” Scott said in a news release.
Nearly half the places that once hosted the Winter Olympics may not have the right climate conditions to ever do it again. For The National, CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault travels high into the Italian Alps to see first hand how a warming planet is changing the future of the Games.
Shifting the games earlier?
Merging the two events in February could support sponsorship and visibility for the Paralympics, but it also runs the risk of them being overshadowed, the study says.
Shifting both Games earlier by two to three weeks is a promising option. The study suggests that nearly doubles the number of reliable Paralympic locations by 2080, with only a small cut to the list of potential Olympic hosts.
In February, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it was looking at shifting the Olympics to start in January to allow the Paralympics to start in February. Karl Stoss, who heads the IOC’s Olympic Programme Working Group, told reporters that March is “very late because the sun is strong enough to melt the snow,” Reuters reports.
In her viral TikTok, three-time paralympic medalist Amy Purdy suggests going a step further and moving the Paralympics before the Olympics. She also asks anyone watching the Paralympics this year to remember that not only are the athletes competing with limitations, but also in “incredibly difficult” conditions.
“Whoever is in charge needs to make some changes,” Purdy said.
For now, both the 2030 French Alps and the 2034 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics are scheduled for February, and their corresponding Paralympics in March.
