The Winter Paralympics celebrate their 50th anniversary in Milan Cortina

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When the Paralympic Winter Games get under way on Friday, they will mark a significant milestone: It’s been 50 years since the first Paralympic Winter Games took to the global stage in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden.

In 1976, fewer than 200 athletes from 16 countries came to compete in alpine and cross-country skiing, laying the foundation for a winter sporting movement that has since grown into one of the Paralympics’ most visible and competitive stages.

Those first Winter Games were modest by today’s standards. There was no global broadcast, no integrated Olympic-Paralympic organizing committee, and little assumption that disability sport belonged in the mainstream. Athletes competed in often improvised conditions, using equipment far removed from the technological sophistication seen today.

Yet Örnsköldsvik 1976 represented a conceptual leap that, for the first time ever, athletes with physical and visual impairments were competing in winter disciplines at an international, multi-sport level.

Canada was there from the very start, competing at the first Winter Paralympics and leaving an early imprint on the Games. A delegation of just six athletes took part in the only two sports on the program at the time, alpine and Nordic skiing. The group won four medals, including two golds, to finish ninth overall.

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John Gow claimed Canada’s first Winter Paralympic gold in the men’s slalom (IV A), an event in the alpine skiing category, and a discipline that would become a long-term podium stronghold for the country. Lorna Manzer also made history, winning bronze medals in the women’s slalom and giant slalom (alpine events) to become the first Canadian woman to reach the Winter Paralympic podium. 71 distinct Canadian athletes would go on to find a medal in the next five decades.

As classification systems evolved and competition deepened, Canada adapted quickly, developing coaching expertise and athlete pathways that emphasized technical precision and long-term development. By the 1990s, Canadians set the standard in alpine and Nordic events, and the country became known for producing technically sound skiers capable of excelling across changing snow conditions and courses.

In the 2006 Torino Games, Canada cracked its best-ever winter finish with 13 medals, slotting sixth overall. The 35 athletes sent to Italy rewrote expectations and dealt with the pressure of Canada’s potential and progress that had been hinted at for years. It was the start of a much-needed wave of momentum ahead of the 2010 Games, hosted in Vancouver.

While the 2010 Games themselves fell well after the early era, they marked a culmination of decades of incremental growth. For the first time in Canada, Paralympic winter sport was presented to a mass domestic audience with purpose-built venues, integrated accessibility planning and sustained broadcast coverage.

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Fuelled by a home crowd, multiple Canadians set records that have yet to be broken. Para alpine skier Lauren Woolstencroft won five gold medals, becoming the first Canadian Paralympian to do so at a single Winter Games. It was a complete sweep in all five disciplines in her women’s category.

To add on, Viviane Forest became the first Canadian athlete to win gold at both the summer and winter Paralympic Games, with victories in goalball and alpine skiing. Calgary native Brian McKeever also drew international attention after becoming the first athlete named to both a country’s Olympic and Paralympic teams for the same Games. Although he did not start in the Olympic races due to late team changes, McKeever went on to win three gold medals at the 2010 Paralympics.

Attendance reached record levels, and many athletes later described the Games as a cultural shift, a moment when Paralympic sport was no longer framed as supplementary, but central. The hosts finished third after collecting 19 medals, 10 of which being gold. The post-Vancouver years saw a strengthening of all winter programs, particularly in para-Nordic skiing and para-alpine, alongside increased funding and professionalization. The country’s winter Paralympians began to emerge not just as medal winners, but as recognizable public figures, advocating for better accessibility, equity and athlete well-being.

Canada’s best came in Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games, where a 55-athlete delegation won a remarkable 28 medals, 12 more than in Sochi four years earlier. Canada finished second overall in total medals, behind the United States, a national record that has yet to be surpassed.

Though Para snowboard made its Paralympic debut in 2014, Canada did not make the podium in any event until most recently, the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games. Lisa DeJong was the first to make the podium with a silver in the snowboard cross event, while later on the same day, Tyler Turner captured gold in his classification.

Looking ahead to the Milan Cortina Winter Games, more than 20 medals will be available across events in which Canada has historically finished among the top three.

The Games will be spread across multiple alpine regions, testing accessibility and logistics in ways that echo, albeit at a far grander scale. For Canada, the milestone is less about nostalgia than about tracing a through-line, from six athletes competing on borrowed infrastructure 50 years ago in Sweden to a modern program built to contend across multiple disciplines.

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