Virtus targets inclusion in 2026 Winter Paralympic Games
In recent months, Virtus has renewed its efforts to include Nordic Skiing within the Winter Paralympic Games. Work to support this first began more than 10 years ago when a sports classification system – similar to that which enabled the inclusion of the intellectual impairment classification group in the summer Paralympic Games in 2012 – was developed and later tested in competition. This was a collaboration between Virtus and the IPC Classification research centre based at KU Leuven in Belgium and was completed in 2018.
Working in partnership with the International Paralympic Committee, our focus had been on securing inclusion in the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympic Games however for a number of reasons, not least the impact of the global pandemic on international competition, this was not eventually possible.
The IPC has a commitment to increase the representation of athletes with an intellectual impairment in Paralympic sport following a motion passed by the membership back in 2017 however in 2022, the governance and responsibility for managing para-snowsports was transferred from the IPC to FIS.
Virtus has continued to grow its ski programme and the recent World Championships in Seefeld-Austria saw our largest entry ever. Ahead of the event, Virtus met with FIS to discuss inclusion in the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games and we look forward to working with FIS to achieve this.
We will of course update the Virtus membership as this project progresses.
