Tomorrow is opening day. The 2026 Winter Paralympics begin at 1:30 PM ET on March 6 inside the Arena di Verona, a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater that has hosted opera under the stars since 1913 and has never hosted a Paralympic Games before. More than 900 athletes from over 40 countries will parade through it. NBCUniversal streams the ceremony live on Peacock.

One thing worth noting before tomorrow: the competition is already underway. Wheelchair curling mixed doubles, making its Paralympic debut at these Games, began March 4 at the Palagiaccio ice arena in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Replays are available on Peacock now, and preliminary sessions continue through March 6. The rest of the competition begins March 7.

Here is everything you need to follow the 2026 Games: when the ceremony is, where to watch, which sports to find on Peacock, and which athletes to track.

The Opening Ceremony: March 6, 1:30 PM ET on Peacock

The Arena di Verona opening is not a small-scale production. Musician Stewart Copeland and electronic duo Meduza perform. The venue, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the first Paralympic opening ceremony site of its kind.

Before the parade starts, watch for who's carrying the U.S. flag. Laurie Stephens is a para alpine skier who won two golds at her first Paralympic Games in Italy, in Torino in 2006. Her teammates voted her to carry the flag into her sixth and final Games, which happen to be in Italy again. Her full story is here. It is the kind of through-line that takes a career to write.

The complete opening ceremony watch guide covers logistics, the full parade order, and what to expect from the production.

Where to Watch

Peacock delivers more than 270 hours of Paralympic coverage across all six sports through March 15. NBC carries select events on the main channel. Peacock's interface organizes by sport, so once you know which discipline you want, the right stream is quick to find. The how-to-watch guide has streaming options, channel information, and tips on navigating the coverage.

The full schedule breaks down all 79 medal events by day, sport, and venue if you want to plan ahead.

The Six Sports

Three regions across northern Italy host the competition. Para alpine skiing and para snowboard run in Livigno and San Pellegrino. Para biathlon and para cross-country skiing are in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Para ice hockey takes place at the Palazzo del Ghiaccio in Milan. Wheelchair curling is at the Palagiaccio in Cortina. The venues guide maps exactly where each event happens.

Each sport rewards a little context before you watch. Here's what to know and what to look for:

Para alpine skiing is the largest sport at the Games, with more than 30 medal events across downhill, super-G, super combined, giant slalom, and slalom. Athletes compete in sitting, standing, and visually impaired categories. If you've never watched a sit-skier take a downhill course, the speed and precision recalibrate how you think about athleticism. Andrew Kurka and Laurie Stephens anchor the U.S. team in this discipline.

Para snowboard covers banked slalom, snowboard cross, and giant slalom. This is where the U.S. has its strongest concentration of compelling stories: Brenna Huckaby, chasing her fourth gold; Kate Delson, making her first Games as a world championship silver medalist; and Noah Elliott, a three-time World Champion who has called these his redemption Games. Three athletes at different points in their careers, all competing in the same events over the same snow.

Para biathlon combines cross-country skiing with precision shooting at a 10-meter range. Skiers arrive at the range with elevated heart rates and must hit targets precisely. Each miss adds penalty time to the run. The math of it creates real drama in every heat. The U.S. has Oksana Masters, Josh Sweeney, and Kendall Gretsch, the defending gold medalist in the sport. Sweeney won gold in sled hockey at Sochi 2014 as a Marine Scout Sniper turned para athlete and is now competing in biathlon for the first time at a Games.

Para cross-country skiing runs alongside the biathlon calendar in Cortina. Oksana Masters and Kendall Gretsch both compete in both Nordic disciplines, which means they can potentially medal across multiple events in the same week. Masters returned to the U.S. team this season after a full year lost to a leg infection. She is one of the most decorated Winter Paralympians in U.S. history.

Para ice hockey is the fastest sport to watch at the Games. Players propel sleds using two sticks with picks on the bottom, hitting speeds that make the game genuinely difficult to follow at first and then very hard to stop watching. Team USA has won four consecutive Paralympic golds. Their first game is March 7 against Italy.

Wheelchair curling is the only sport in competition right now. Athletes deliver stones from a stationary wheelchair without sweeping, which makes precision the entire game. The mixed doubles format, new to the Paralympic program in 2026, pairs one male and one female athlete per team. Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer are the first U.S. pair in Paralympic history to compete in the event.

Athletes to Follow

The How to Follow Team USA guide has the full picture by sport, including which Peacock hubs to use for each event. The medal predictions breakdown analyzes where the strongest U.S. medal cases are, sport by sport.

Three profiles worth reading before the events begin:

Joe Pleban chose amputation at 21 when a joint condition destroyed his ankle. He's competing in his first Paralympic Games in para alpine skiing.

Andrew Kurka is heading to his fourth Games and runs an accessible bed-and-breakfast in Palmer, Alaska, designed specifically for guests with disabilities.

Davy Zyw, a Scottish snowboarder diagnosed with motor neuron disease in 2018 and given two to three years to live, crowdfunded his way to qualification. He is believed to be the first snowsport athlete with MND to compete at the Winter Games.

The Russia and Belarus Situation

The IPC allowed both countries to compete under their national flags, a decision that led Ukraine, Poland, and several other nations to announce they would boycott the opening ceremony march while still competing. The full background is worth reading before watching tomorrow's parade.

What Makes Tomorrow Worth Showing Up For

There's a particular kind of post-Olympics lull that sets in after the able-bodied Games end. If you felt that when the Olympics wrapped last month, this is the antidote.

The athletes converging on Milan, Cortina, and Livigno are the best in the world at what they do, the sports are full-contact real competition, and the individual stories arriving in Italy this week are among the most interesting in Paralympic sport in years: a flag bearer making her sixth Games in the same country as her first, a snowboarder who was told he had two years to live and is here anyway, a pair of wheelchair curlers who found their sport from a stranger and a flyer and are now competing in it at the highest level in history.

The ceremony starts at 1:30 PM ET. Peacock is the place to be.