MILAN — The Summer Paralympic Games began in 1960, but it took another 16 years before winter sports got their due.
Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, hosted the first Winter Paralympics in 1976. It featured two sports — Para Alpine skiing and Para cross-country skiing — bringing together 198 athletes from 16 countries. Fifty years later, the Winter Paralympics will celebrate that milestone in Italy, where 665 athletes will compete in 79 events across six sports.
Team USA sent one delegate, Bill Hovanic, to the inaugural Winter Games in 1976. Growth has accelerated in the decades that followed, from an improbable sled hockey gold-medal run in 2002 to a 2018 first-place finish for the first time in snowboarding, all of which contributed to the domestic evolution of Para sports.
The U.S. took home six medals in 1980, 48 medals short of leader Norway. The U.S. has since won the Paralympic medal count twice — 1992 Albertville and 2018 PyeongChang.
“We are shifting the narrative around Para sport,” snowboarder Brenna Huckaby (a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana) said. “It’s just how do we get more people excited and engaged? And I mean, the fact that it’s been around for 50 years, why wouldn’t it continue? We’re just growing.”
For athletes entering the Paralympic pipeline today, the anniversary also highlights the legacy built by generations of competitors who helped expand opportunities in Para sports.
Nineteen-year-old Para Alpine skier Audrey Crowley (Eagle, Colorado) will be competing in her first Games, but she’s following in the footsteps of the 254-medal Team USA history before her. Crowley is joined on Team USA by 42-year-old Laurie Stephens, competing in her sixth Games. She’ll also be alongside Jasmin Bambur, who is in his fifth and Andrew Kurka, who is in his third, but has qualified for four Paralympics.
The Para Alpine skiing team alone has 13 athletes who have competed in previous Games.
“I think that’s a really cool thing about the Paralympics, the history and the history of the athletes,” Crowley said. “It’s pretty special that it’s the 50th, but also just getting to be with my teammates who have had three-plus Games, and the longevity of Para athletes is also super cool.”
The Games have grown significantly over five decades, welcoming a record 56 National Paralympic Committees and a 160 female competitors, while Para Alpine skiing, Para biathlon, Para snowboard and wheelchair curling all will have a record number of NPCs participating.
Despite the growth in participation and elite-level competition, athletes say visibility remains one of the biggest challenges facing Paralympic sports.
When a young Noah Elliott (St. Charles, Missouri) sat in a hospital bed in 2014, his nurse walked in and flipped the television on. It exposed him to the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics, Elliott’s first time learning about the Games.
“If that wouldn’t have happened, I would not be the No. 1 snowboarder in the world right now,” Elliott said. “So that’s truly changed my life.”
Media coverage has improved, though. The Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games garnered a record television viewership of 2.1 billion around the world. Those numbers cleared 2.02 billion viewers from PyeongChang 2018.
Steve Emt (DeForest, Wisconsin), who first competed in PyeongChang, said coverage surrounding the Games was limited during his first appearance. He’s seen the improvements firsthand as a competitor.
“The media coverage alone, leading up to the Games, while we were there, was nil,” Emt said. ”There was nothing. Maybe five hours of coverage back home here to watch us. Beijing was through the roof. It was incredible.”
That four-year improvement leaves Emt optimistic for 2026.
Organizations such as the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee have helped elevate the profile of Paralympic athletes. Emt said increased medal compensation and greater media attention have helped bring more visibility to the competitors.
“We’re on the same playing level now as the able-bodied athletes, and that has not always been the case,” Emt said.
As the Winter Paralympics celebrate 50 years, athletes say the continued growth of the movement will depend on expanding access and exposure for Para sports.
NBCUniversal’s TV deal for the 2026 Milano Cortina Paralympics is reflective of that change, accounting for an extensive programming plan with more than 80 hours of coverage across NBC, USA Network and CNBC in the U.S.
For the athletes, though, the focus remains on what will bring more attention to their sport.
“We just need more media,” Elliott said.
Trevor McGee is a reporter for the Paralympics Project, a partnership between USA Today Network and the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.