# Russia Wins First Winter Paralympic Medals Since 2014 in Cortina d’Ampezzo

*Event date: March 7, 2026*

By IO Digest Desk

Russia earned its first Winter Paralympic medals since 2014 on March 7, 2026, when para alpine skiers Varvara Voronchikhina and Aleksei Bugaev each won bronze in downhill standing events at the Milan-Cortina Games. The results ended a long absence shaped by sanctions, bans and restrictions that had kept Russian athletes from competing under their national flag at recent Winter Paralympics.

According to *The Moscow Times*, Voronchikhina took bronze in the women’s downhill standing event, becoming the first Russian athlete to reach the Winter Paralympic podium since the Sochi Games. Later the same day, Bugaev added a bronze in the men’s downhill standing event, giving Russia two medals and bringing the three-time Paralympic gold medalist’s career tally to eight.

The results carried significance well beyond the medal table because they came after years of exclusion and conditional participation. Russia was banned from the 2018 Paralympics over a doping scandal, though some athletes competed under neutral colors. Russia and Belarus were then barred from the 2022 Winter Paralympics following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while athletes from those countries were later allowed to appear as neutrals at the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympics.

At the 2026 Winter Games, however, the International Paralympic Committee allowed six Russian athletes and four from Belarus to compete under their national flags rather than as neutrals, a decision that drew criticism. *The Moscow Times* reported that seven countries, including Ukraine, boycotted Friday’s opening ceremony and that some spectators booed the Russian delegation during the parade of athletes in Verona. That reaction underscored how participation rules themselves had become part of the political story surrounding the competition.

Voronchikhina, 23, said the opportunity to compete with the Russian flag mattered after such a long absence. Bugaev, 28, called his bronze one of the most difficult medals of his career and said it was meaningful to represent his country again without the restrictions that had defined previous Games. Their comments reflected a national sports narrative of return, but they also highlighted how deeply geopolitical decisions have shaped Paralympic participation.

For the IPC, the issue was never only about alpine skiing. Decisions on eligibility, flags and status have become tests of whether international sport can separate athletic participation from war and state conduct. The criticism described by *The Moscow Times* shows that many governments, audiences and athletes do not accept an easy separation.

On the slopes in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the immediate outcome was simple: two bronze medals for Russia. In the wider Paralympic context, the results marked the end of a twelve-year gap in Russian Winter Paralympic medaling and the beginning of a new argument about the terms under which that return has taken place.

That combination of sporting achievement and political contention is what made March 7 notable. Russia was back on the Winter Paralympic podium, but not in a way that allowed the surrounding controversy to disappear. That ensured the medal results would be read not only through sport, but through the politics surrounding who was allowed to compete and under what symbols.