Winter Paralympics 2026: who are Australia’s top medal contenders? | Kieran Pender
Following a Winter Olympics of unprecedented success for team Australia, the nation’s para-athletes will be hoping to emulate that golden form when the Milano Cortina Paralympics begin on Friday.Australia has won a medal at every Winter Paralympics since 1992, with the high-point coming at Salt Lake City in 2002 thanks to a record six gold medals.In Italy, Australia will be represented by 12 para-athletes and two guides across four sports, a slight increase on the team size from Beijing 2022.Who are Australia’s medal hopefuls?Already a two-time Summer Paralympics gold medallist, the remarkable Reid will make history as Australia’s first Indigenous Winter Paralympian in the weeks ahead.The Wemba-Wemba and Guring-gai woman started her career as a para-swimmer, competing at the 2012 Games, before switching to track para-cycling.
Success soon followed, with silver at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio before consecutive gold medals in Tokyo and Paris, alongside a dozen world titles.Not content with domination in the velodrome, Reid took up para-snowboarding in 2023 and won two world championship medals – gold in the snowboard cross event, and bronze in the banked discipline – that same year.The 29-year-old will be a leading medal contender among a four-strong Australian para-snowboarding team, a significant increase in representation after Ben Tudhope won bronze as the nation’s only para-snowboarder in Beijing four years ago.Reid will not be the only summer-to-winter convert in Italy for Australia.Parker, who won dual golds in Paris in the triathlon and hand-cycling road race, will compete in cross-country skiing and biathlon.
It marks a rapid winter sport rise for the Newcastle local, who only tried snow sports for the first time last year, and had never fired a gun – biathlon combines skiing with target shooting – until December.“It’s happened so fast, and I’ve put in a lot of hard work, and I’ve had to learn a lot of skills really quickly,” she told the ABC.It will be a busy Games for Parker, who is competing in six events across the two disciplines, although the 37-year-old is no stranger to a compressed schedule; in addition to two golds in Paris, Parker also won silver in the hand-cycling individual time trial.Parker and Reid join a small but growing group of Australian athletes who have competed in both the summer and winter Games.The return of Australia to the para-biathlon, featuring Parker and three other athletes plus a guide, will mark the nation’s first appearance in the discipline for two decades.
Milton, who turns 53 in mid-March, is Australia’s most successful Winter Paralympian, with six gold, three silver and two bronze medals.The Sport Australia Hall of Fame Legend most recently competed at the 2006 Winter Games, before a stint as a para-cyclist.But Milton came out of retirement with an audacious bid to become Australia’s oldest Winter Paralympian and break the record for the longest wait between Games appearances.He came one step closer to that goal last week, when he was named in Australia’s para-alpine skiing team to contest the giant slalom and slalom disciplines.But Milton still needs medical clearance, after a crash in training left him with a fracture at the top of his amputated left leg which required surgery.
It has been 24 years since Milton sent Australia soaring up the medal tally in Salt Lake City with four individual gold medals in the one Games,Making the start-line in Italy will be a remarkable achievement following an exceptional sporting career,Milton heads a five-strong para-alpine skiing team from Australia at the Games; teammate Liana France, just 16, will become Australia’s youngest female winter Paralympian,As a teenager, Hanlon was destined for a career in the AFL – he was a member of the GWS Giants Academy,But a bacterial infection in 2018 required the amputation of both legs below the knee and his right arm at the wrist.
It prompted Hanlon to switch from AFL to para-alpine skiing and the country boy from Weethalle, a town of 300 in the NSW Central West, was soon Paralympics Australia’s rookie of the year.Having competed in the slalom and giant slalom in Beijing, with a best result of sixth in the slalom, Hanlon will have more opportunities to win a medal in Italy, having qualified for all five para-alpine disciplines.He also won his first World Cup medal last year, in the slalom in Germany.
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