Not everyone had the alarm set for 4:00 a.m. ET Saturday, and that was fine. American viewers who caught up later, on CNBC, Peacock, or in NBC's primetime show at 8:00 p.m., found a Day 1 that delivered on every promise the previews made.

Kendall Gretsch defended her Paralympic title in the biathlon sprint. Oksana Masters medaled in her first Games race in more than three years. Team USA's para ice hockey program opened its tournament with a win against Italy. And Brenna Huckaby posted the fastest qualifying time in women's snowboard cross.

Gretsch Wins Biathlon Sprint

Defending a Paralympic title in para biathlon is one of the harder things in adaptive winter sports. Athletes ski a cross-country course, stop twice to fire ten shots at targets 10 meters away, and take a penalty loop for every miss. A single bad shot on the range reshuffles the podium, which is exactly why everyone chasing Kendall Gretsch came to Cortina with real hope. She arrived with six World Championship golds and the defending Paralympic title. All they needed was for her to blink.

She didn't. Clean on both shooting stages, all ten targets connected, 28.4 seconds ahead of Germany's Andrea Eskau for silver. Sixth Paralympic gold. She races again Sunday in the 12.5km individual, then the middle distance on March 10 and the relay on March 12. At the 2025 World Championships, she swept all three sitting biathlon events. Saturday looked like the start of another one.

Masters: Five Games, Five Podiums

Oksana Masters did not race at all in 2024-25. A bone infection ended her season before it started. She came back in the fall, rebuilt her form through the current World Cup circuit, and arrived in Cortina not having stood at a Paralympic start line since Beijing 2022, more than three years earlier.

She finished 1 minute, 14 seconds behind Gretsch and 39 seconds behind Eskau. Bronze. Her 15th Winter Paralympic medal, and the fifth consecutive Winter Games where she has medaled: Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022, and now two Games in Italy.

Seven events remain. Cross-country skiing opens March 8, and that is typically where her endurance takes over.

Ice Hockey: Team USA Opens With a Win

The hockey game ran at a more reasonable hour: 11:05 a.m. ET at the Milano Santagiulia Arena. Team USA's para ice hockey program took on host nation Italy in the first preliminary-round game of these Games, and won.

Four consecutive Paralympic gold medals. Germany and China are next in group-stage play before the semifinals on March 13. This is what the fifth looks like from the opening game: one more win.

Huckaby: Fastest in Qualifying

Saturday's snowboard cross was qualifying. Sunday is the race.

Brenna Huckaby posted the fastest time in her category among all women in the field. She is a three-time Paralympic medalist, the most decorated American para snowboarder in the sport's history, and someone who has been building toward this moment for four years. Kate Delson, who won silver at the 2025 World Championships and arrived in Milan as the second-ranked competitor in the world, is also in the final. Noah Elliott, top-ranked in the LL1 class and calling Milan his redemption run after finishing fourth in Beijing, enters Sunday as the man to beat in his category.

Para snowboard cross finals run from approximately 5:00 to 7:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, with CNBC carrying live coverage.

How to Follow Sunday

CNBC has live coverage in the early morning for biathlon individual and snowboard cross finals, both before 8:00 a.m. ET. NBC's primetime show at 8:00 p.m. ET covers the full day's results. Everything is on demand on Peacock, including all of Saturday for anyone who missed the early start.

The full streaming and broadcast breakdown is in the how-to-watch guide.