Team USA is heading to the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milan with 68 athletes and gold cases in four separate sports built on results, not hope. The Games run March 6 through 15, and the question for most informed fans is not whether USA will medal. The better question is where the medals will come from and how many.

Here is the sport-by-sport answer.

Para Ice Hockey: Nothing Comes Close

Start with para ice hockey, because nothing in U.S. Paralympic winter sports compares to what this program has built. Five consecutive gold medals since 2002. Six total since para ice hockey entered the Games program in 1994. The international field has grown, with Canada and South Korea consistently making medal rounds, but U.S. depth across goaltending and forward lines has kept the streak intact through every cycle.

In Milan, the team opens March 7 against Italy at the Torino Skating Oval. The roster includes Declan Farmer, Josh Pauls who has won four gold medals across five Games, Malik Jones, and Brody Roybal. The competition to end this streak is real. Both Canada and South Korea have pushed USA in recent Games, but this is a program that knows how to close.

Para ice hockey is the first medal-track sport on the schedule, starting day two of the Games.

Para Nordic and Biathlon: The Deepest Roster in the Field

USA outmedaled every other nation in para Nordic skiing and biathlon at the 2022 Beijing Games. The 2026 roster is as deep as it has ever been.

Oksana Masters holds 14 Winter Paralympic medals, the U.S. record. She enters 2026 targeting events in both cross-country skiing and biathlon. Kendall Gretsch comes in as the reigning para biathlon champion, and her 2025-26 season has been exceptional: three golds at the 2025 World Championships, a podium at the January 2026 World Cup in Otepää. She is the best para biathlon skier in the world right now, and she knows it.

The roster runs three and four athletes deep beyond those two. Dan Cnossen has seven Paralympic medals. Jake Adicoff has four. Aaron Pike has competed across seven Paralympic Games in both summer and winter disciplines. Sydney Peterson is a three-time medalist in the sitting classification of Nordic skiing. That kind of depth means one athlete having a difficult day does not change the program's medal output.

Biathlon events begin March 8.

Para Snowboard: An All-Time Record on the Line

Brenna Huckaby has won three Paralympic golds in para snowboard. A fourth in Milan would tie the all-time gold record in the sport. She is heading to her third Games in banked slalom and snowboard cross, and the framing is exactly that simple: she is chasing history.

Noah Elliott won gold and bronze at his 2018 debut in PyeongChang and has continued competing at Games level since. Kate Delson earned World Championship silver in snowboard cross at the 2025 event and arrives in Milan at 20 as a rated medal contender in her discipline, making her Paralympic debut. Three U.S. athletes with individual podium cases across two disciplines is a strong position, particularly in a sport where the medal events are decided in seconds.

Snowboard events run across March 10 through 13 at the Collinetta venue.

Para Alpine: Volume Creates Opportunity

Para alpine is where volume matters. The 30-plus medal events span five disciplines and three athlete categories, standing, sitting, and visually impaired, giving USA more opportunities than any other sport at the Games.

Andrew Kurka qualified for Milan and is racing. He won gold in downhill and silver in super-G at PyeongChang 2018, and his return gives the U.S. program a known quantity in a field where Austria and France have run strong in recent cycles. Laurie Stephens returns for her fifth Games, a career that spans multiple Paralympic medals across different competition eras. USA is not the dominant force in para alpine the way it is in hockey or Nordic, but 30-plus medal events across five disciplines is a wide net to cast.

Para alpine racing opens March 7 at the Tofane venue in Cortina d'Ampezzo, running alongside the early hockey and curling schedules.

Wheelchair Curling: The Open Question

USA has never won a wheelchair curling medal. Their best result since the sport joined the Games in 2006 was a fourth-place finish in 2010. This cycle, the program gets two entries.

The five-person mixed team, led by Matthew Thums, competes in the traditional format. Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer qualified as the first American pair in mixed doubles, which makes its Paralympic debut in Milan. Entering a brand-new event format is the clearest path USA has to writing new history in this sport: no existing result to improve on, no opponent who has beaten them in this specific competition before.

Curling is already underway March 4, two days before the opening ceremony.

The Schedule

Para ice hockey opens March 7, the first chance to see whether the streak reaches six straight. Biathlon is on the next morning, with Masters going for more in her U.S. record haul and Gretsch defending her gold. Snowboard events run March 10-13. Para alpine is on all week starting March 7. Wheelchair curling starts March 4 and runs through the first half of the Games.

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