Winter Paralympics balances Russia's inclusion against a possible ceremony boycott

The Paralympic torch departed its birthplace in Stoke Mandeville this week and has reached the entrance to the Dolomites.
The cities of Bolzano and Trento will stage “flame festivals” this weekend to greet the Paralympic movement and mark its development on the 50th anniversary of the inaugural Winter Games.
It promises a celebratory yet moving opening to what may become a contentious two‑week period.

As the torch changes hands among bearers, officials of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) will be racing to manage a situation that increasingly looks like a diplomatic row.
A ruling made last week to permit ten Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part in the Winter Paralympics at Milano‑Cortina has drawn strong condemnation from across Europe and beyond.

Ukraine responded first, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denouncing the IPC’s move as “dirty”, “undignified” and “unEuropean in its values”.
His rebuke was echoed by other European leaders, such as Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani, who on Tuesday issued a statement urging the IPC to reverse the decision.
Britain’s culture secretary Lisa Nandy described it as “completely the wrong call”.
European sport commissioner Glenn Micallef announced he will boycott the Games’ opening ceremony in protest.

The anger over Russian participation now centres on next Friday’s opening ceremony in the Verona Arena, with a growing chance that it will be attended by few of the athletes whose presence defines the event.
Ukraine will dispatch neither athletes nor officials, and the Netherlands, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland are also expected to join any boycott.
Additional nations, while not formally protesting, have said their athletes will stay away and that volunteers will carry their flags into the arena.
Great Britain is among those whose representatives will be absent.

ParalympicsGB state they have never boycotted a Games and have no intention of doing so.
They point to the competition schedule, noting that alpine skiing begins early on the morning after the opening ceremony, which is held 150 miles (241 km) away in Cortina, as the cause of their limited presence.
British parasport officials will still be present in the arena, as will some politicians from the United States, though JD Vance will not attend, and the IPC notes that comparable scheduling issues led to a reduced turnout at the Beijing opening ceremony four years earlier.
Whether these explanations will convince observers remains uncertain, especially if spectators witness an opening ceremony lacking the very participants they came to see.

The IPC announced a ban on Russian and Belarusian participation in Paralympic sport in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine.
The restriction was softened a year later, allowing individuals to compete at the 2024 Paris Games as “neutral athletes”.