The Winter Paralympics are in the books, and this year’s Games were the best ever on a number of counts. They featured 611 athletes from 55 nations, both shattering the previous highs (564 athletes, 48 countries) set back in 2018. Five countries made their Winter Paralympic debuts, and the early estimates for television viewership and online engagement are very favorable.
Here’s a digest of key numbers from the 2026 Winter Games.
27
countries won at least one medal in Milano-Cortina, the highest total ever. Two of those nations, Brazil and Georgia, won the first Winter Paralympic medals in their history, and Brazil’s—a silver by Cristian Ribera in cross-country skiing—was the first medal won by any athlete from the South American continent.
160
women competed at this year’s Winter Paralympics, the largest total ever. That’s nearly a 20 percent percent increase over the previous record. The total includes one sled hockey player, Japan’s Akari Fukunishi—just the fourth woman in history to skate on Paralympic ice.
10,775
fans watched the gold-medal hockey match between the USA and Canada, reportedly the highest in-person attendance for a para hockey match. That marked the second record-setting crowd at Milano-Cortina; the previous high of 8,992 fans came to see host nation Italy play the US during the preliminary round.
361
medals have been won by US Winter Paralympians since the Games’ inception, the most of any nation. Team USA entered the 2026 Games ranked third on the all-time medal chart; they leapfrogged Norway and Austria at Milano-Cortina to claim the top spot. The US still ranks second in the gold medal column, trailing Norway by nine.
414 million
video views were registered at the @Paralympics YouTube channel during the course of the Games. That’s an increase of more than 700 percent over the 2024 Summer Games.
28
American athletes won medals at the 2026 Games. That total includes 10 winners in individual events, the 17 members of the US hockey team, one Nordic skier (Josh Sweeney) from a medal-winning relay team.
15
of Team USA’s 24 medals were won by women, continuing a longstanding trend. US women have accounted for more than half of the nation’s medal total at every Winter Paralympics in this century except one (2018).
6
US athletes with limb differences won individual medals at Milano-Cortina: Oksana Masters, Kate Delson, Noah Elliott, Brenna Huckaby, Mike Schultz, and Patrick Halgren. Collectively, they won 12 of Team USA’s 22 individual medals. Amputee athletes also contributed to both of the team medals (cross-country relay and sled hockey) the United States won.
