Para cross-country skiing at the 2026 Paralympics runs 20 medal events across five race formats at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Val di Fiemme, March 10 through 15. That is the final stretch of the Games. For anyone who spent the first week watching para biathlon at Cortina, cross-country is where you find out how those same athletes perform when the rifles are gone and the only thing left is how far and fast you can push across snow.

How the Events Work

Five formats shape the competition week.

Sprint events run in elimination heats: athletes race head-to-head, fastest advance. The format is the most immediate entry into the sport. One athlete carries speed through a turn that another loses, the margins show up immediately, and by the second heat you know exactly which moments to watch for.

The 10km interval start classic sends athletes onto the course in timed waves rather than a pack. No one starts at the same moment, so the race exists simultaneously at multiple points on the course. The drama runs through the timing splits, watching a skier climb the leaderboard as their intervals improve against competitors who left ahead of them. Overtaking is live. The scoreboard catches it.

The 20km interval start free uses skate technique over double the distance. Skate technique pushes diagonally outward, generating more speed on flat terrain than the classic parallel-stride motion. This is the full test of the Nordic schedule: longer, harder, and the event where an athlete who has peaked early cannot hide it.

Relays put four athletes in sequence over 4x2.5km legs. The mixed relay includes both men and women. By the time the final leg arrives, whatever the first three athletes built or gave away lands on one person to close out.

Classic and skate are different enough that watching both formats across the competition window shows you something about technique that broadcast commentary rarely articulates. Classic stays in groomed parallel tracks; skate pushes laterally and runs faster on flat terrain. Watching Kendall Gretsch in both formats, the speed difference is visible even from a camera position.

How the Categories Work

Para cross-country skiing divides into three groups: standing, sitting, and visually impaired. All three categories can compete in the same race, with results and medals tracked separately within each group.

Standing athletes are classified LW2 through LW9, covering lower limb impairments, upper limb impairments, and combined impairments on one side. LW2 athletes use outriggers, forearm crutch-style poles that contribute to both balance and propulsion. The range of functional difference inside the standing category is wide, and the classification system exists precisely to account for that, so what you are watching is athletic performance rather than a ranking of degree of impairment.

Sitting athletes are classified LW10 through LW12 and race in a sit-ski, a chair mounted on a pair of skis and propelled entirely by arm power. LW10 athletes have high-level paraplegia with no functional lower-body muscle and generate every bit of their speed through shoulders, arms, and whatever they can load through their core into the poles. LW12 athletes have partial lower limb function and can engage more of their body during propulsion. Watching a sitting athlete sustain pace through 20 kilometers is a specific invitation to pay attention to what arm-driven endurance looks like when someone has spent years building exactly that.

Visually impaired athletes are classified B1 through B3. Every VI athlete races with a guide skier on a short tether, providing verbal navigation from start to finish. The guide covers every meter the athlete covers. In the 20km race, that is 20 kilometers of continuous direction and adjustment between two people moving through terrain together. The partnership is a real part of the racing strategy, not just logistics, and it adds a dimension to the VI category that does not exist in any other.

The Athletes to Follow

Oksana Masters enters her fifth Winter Games carrying 19 Paralympic medals across Summer and Winter sports. She spent the 2024-25 season away from competition after a leg infection and returned to be named to the 2026 U.S. Paralympic Nordic team. Her Beijing 2022 biathlon performance was the best of her winter career. How her endurance holds in the 20km format after a full season away from racing is one of the most genuinely open questions on the Nordic schedule.

Kendall Gretsch is the current World Cup leader in para cross-country and won silver in all three individual cross-country events at the 2025 World Championships. She is ranked second globally in the sitting category and carries strong sprint form alongside consistent long-distance results. Her schedule spans cross-country at Val di Fiemme and biathlon at Cortina, making her the most active athlete across the full Nordic program.

Jake Adicoff competes in the visually impaired classification with three medals from Beijing 2022, including two individual silvers. He is the reigning world champion in the VI 10km and 20km events. If you want to watch the guide relationship at full race intensity, two people navigating an entire course on verbal communication and a tether, his events in the second half of the competition window are where to find it.

Where to Watch

Para cross-country skiing runs March 10-15 at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Val di Fiemme. All events stream on Peacock, with the full schedule on Olympics.com.

Start with the sprint events on the opening competition day. The heats are immediate, the eliminations are visible, and the format teaches you the mechanics fast. By the time the 20km free events close out the Nordic schedule on March 15, you will already know who these athletes are and what you are watching when the final race of the Games gets underway.