Even with their names already enshrined in the sport's history together, China's golden couple Xu Mengtao and Wang Xindi have refused to rest on their laurels.
A motto that captures the essence of the Paralympic spirit resonates deeply across the venues of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Paralympic Games every day — just showing up is, itself, a victory.
The lone silhouette of a skier gliding down a mountain is, for many, the enduring image of winter sports. For visually impaired athletes, however, their experience on the snow is never lonely.
A relatively new prosthetic leg, a bruised face from falls during training, and a less-than-ideal starting position — all the odds seemed stacked against China's para snowboarder Wu Zhongwei as he entered his first final at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Paralympics on Sunday.
When Gao Tingyu steps onto the ice in Milan, he will be skating against more than the clock. At 28, the Beijing 2022 men's 500-meter speed skating champion is no longer the young challenger who once stunned the world, but a seasoned sprinter chasing something far rarer in speed skating — a successful Olympic title defense.
There may have been no gold for Su Yiming, but there was heaps of pride, as China's snowboarding pioneer is determined to use the unsuccessful defense of his Olympic big air title as renewed motivation to keep elevating his performances and inspiring the next generation.
