The Cortina Para Snowboard Park sits in the Dolomites. Jagged peaks, a carved-up course, athletes moving at speeds that do not leave room for hesitation. Para snowboard at the 2026 Winter Paralympics runs two events starting March 7, and they work differently enough that knowing the format changes what you are watching.

The Two Events

Para snowboard at the 2026 Paralympics runs two distinct events, and they are genuinely different sports even though the athletes, the board, and the mountain are the same.

Snowboard cross puts multiple riders on the course simultaneously. The track has gates, jumps, and banked turns. Riders launch in heats, and the fastest ones advance. It is physical, unpredictable, and occasionally contact-adjacent. The margins between a quarterfinal exit and a medal are often measured in tenths of a second.

Banked slalom is a solo time trial. One rider at a time carves through a series of banked turns, top to bottom, as fast as possible. There are no other riders to watch out for and no jumps. The entire event is about the line: where you carry speed into a turn, where you let the board run, where you cut time. Judges rank by time, not placement during the run. If you have ever watched alpine skiing and wondered what a course would look like designed specifically for generating speed through the turns, banked slalom is the answer to that question.

How the Classifications Work

Para snowboard groups athletes by functional impairment to create competitive categories where athletes face comparable physical challenges.

Standing categories cover lower limb and upper limb impairments:

• SB-LL1: lower limb impairment with more significant functional impact. Double amputees and hip-level limb differences typically compete here. Brenna Huckaby, three-time Paralympic gold medalist, competes in this category.
• SB-LL2: lower limb impairment with less functional impact on snowboard performance. Below-knee amputees and athletes with leg length differences are common in this group. Kate Delson and Noah Elliott compete at SB-LL2.
• SB-UL: upper limb impairment. The board mechanics are the same; the athlete's arm or hand function is affected.

The sitting category is SB-LL3, for athletes with impairments affecting both lower limbs who ride with a modified binding system that keeps the board fixed underfoot while seated. When you see a sitting athlete hit the course in snowboard cross, they are navigating the same gates and jumps as the standing classes, at the same speeds.

Who to Watch

Brenna Huckaby has been the name in para snowboard for a decade. Three Paralympic golds, multiple world championship titles, and a story that started with bone cancer at 14. She heads to Cortina targeting a fourth gold in the SB-LL1 category. If you want to understand what elite riding in this event looks like, watch her banked slalom run and notice the lines she picks.

Kate Delson is making her Paralympic debut in SB-LL2 after winning World Championship silver. She studies her own biomechanics, tracks her edge angles, and brings that analytical rigor to the course. She is one of the most technically precise athletes on the SB-LL2 start list.

Noah Elliott has two Olympics behind him and a story that makes Beijing 2022 hard to read. He finished his runs at those Games with a femur fracture. He rebuilt. The 2024-25 season gave him Crystal Globes and an ESPY. Cortina is what he is calling his redemption Games, and he enters as the form pick in SB-LL2.

Where and When

All para snowboard events run at the Cortina Para Snowboard Park in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Competition begins March 7 and runs through March 14. Coverage airs on Peacock, with same-day tape for major finals.

Knowing the format is what separates a first-time watcher from someone who knows what they are looking at. Huckaby in banked slalom and Elliott in snowboard cross are two stories running in parallel, on the same mountain, March 7 through 14.