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.
Shadow of Iraq war lies over Westminster as MPs consider US-Israeli attack on Iran
Calvin Bailey keeps his Iraq medal, issued to members of the British armed forces who served as part of Operation Telic, safe in a drawer in his home. It features a clasp, given to personnel who were part of the very first wave of flights to leave British bases to invade Iraq in March 2003.So when the Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead spoke at a meeting between Labour MPs and the prime minister on Monday evening, people listened. “I was exposed to and aware of all the things that were happening in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq: the groupthink, the sense of unstoppable momentum,” he said on Tuesday. “If you look at what is happening right now, it’s materially different to 2003, but I think I can speak with adequate weight and credibility
‘It’s no news just when we wanted some’: bosses react to spring statement
Amid global volatility, Rachel Reeves tried to project calm with a low-key forecast. But business owners have their doubtsRachel Reeves gave a deliberately low-key spring forecast on Tuesday, in an attempt to project calm amid volatility abroad and after repeated tax rising budgets.But for some business owners struggling with rising costs, a lack of policy announcements this time around was a disappointment.Changes to the business rates system are set to go ahead on 1 April, while Reeves offered little relief for companies still reeling from increases to employment costs last year. Nor was there clarity on the long-delayed defence investment plan, a key part of promises to increase spending
Reeves’s spring statement? The economy is great, don’t worry about the Middle East
When your luck is out, your luck is out. Time to accept what the fates have to throw at you. It was always going to be a bit of a stretch for Rachel Reeves to maintain she had a brilliant plan and the economy had never been in better health when the figures show a fall in growth and a rise in unemployment. Unless you happen to think those things aren’t so bad after all.To do so three days after the beginning of Donald Trump’s Awfully Big Iranian Adventure when oil and gas prices are rising, the bond markets are in turmoil and stock markets around the world are falling, begins to look a bit previous
UK considering sending warship to Cyprus; government to charter flight from Oman ‘in the coming days’– as it happened
You can now read the full story on our earlier reports in the blog that the government is considering sending warship HMS Duncan to Cyprus, here:John Healey, the defence secretary, is considering sending a Royal Navy destroyer to Cyprus to help defend British bases there after several apparently hostile drones targeted RAF Akrotiri on the island.Defence sources said a deployment of HMS Duncan, currently in Portsmouth, was under discussion as a way to better protect the base in Cyprus – though another said it was possible one of two other destroyers might be sent as an alternative.HMS Duncan is specialised in counter-drone operations and last month was engaged on a test exercise off the coast of Wales facing swarms of drones, before hosting a family day on Friday. It is not clear how ready it is to set sail.John Healey, the defence secretary, is considering sending a Royal Navy destroyer to Cyprus to help defend British bases there after several apparently hostile drones targeted RAF Akrotiri on the island
Starmer vows to avoid ‘mistakes of Iraq’ that have haunted Labour for decades
Tony Blair’s support for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 has long loomed like a spectre over the Labour party.It was present in 2013 when Ed Miliband as opposition leader voted to block UK military action against the Syrian regime.And it was there again on Monday when Keir Starmer assured MPs that the government remembered the “mistakes of Iraq” and would always operate on a “lawful basis” and with a “viable thought-through plan”to the crisis erupting in the Middle East.The implication from the prime minister was clear: he does not think the initial US and Israeli strikes against Iran were either legal or considered. “This government does not believe in regime change from the skies,” he told the Commons
After failing to win the peace prize, Trump turns his focus to Nobel prize for war | John Crace
Maybe we should have just had done with it back in December. Instead of offering a polite reservation, every western country should have sent a full, state delegation to Norway. Begging, imploring the Nobel Committee to award Donald Trump the peace prize. We could all have chipped in a couple of billion just to make it even more worth winning.And if that wasn’t enough, we could have twisted the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, to upgrade his “Peaceiest Ever President” award to the “Makes Jesus Look Second Rate” prize
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