Sunday, the 2026 Winter Games hosted by Milan Cortina, Italy, will end with the Closing Ceremony of the Paralympics for athletes with disabilities.
The 2½-hour-long stadium show in the Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio, Cortina’s curling venue, is set to feature the Italian singer Arisa and other performers in what organizers have said will be “a finale that promises pure energy.”
Streamed live by NBC in the United States on Peacock starting at 1:30 p.m. MDT, the Closing Ceremony is the final event of Italy’s Winter Games that began Feb. 6 with the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics, in Milan.
The Olympics concluded with their own Closing Ceremony on Feb. 22.
Italy’s Paralympics were the largest ever for a Winter Games, with more than 600 athletes from 55 countries competing in 79 medal events across six sports. The largest had been the 2018 Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, with 564 athletes from 49 delegations.
Colleen Wrenn, executive director of the International Paralympic Committee, said during a visit to Utah earlier this year to meet with organizers of the state’s 2034 Winter Games that the Paralympics are about more than competition.
“While the Paralympic Games today are synonymous with elite sport (and) one of the largest sporting events in the world, one of the most followed sporting events in the world, still, core to our identity is this idea that change starts with sport,” she said.
The Paralympics are helping to transform the lives of the world’s 1.3 billion people with disabilities, Wrenn said, by sparking changes in not just physical infrastructure to improve access but also in attitudes.
Utah’s 2002 Winter Games were the first where both the Olympics and Paralympics were staged by the same organizing committee. Organizers of the state’s next Games are already talking about taking the Paralympics to a new level in 2034 by providing services to athletes’ families.
Fraser Bullock, president and executive chair of the Organizing Committee for the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, said during the Milan Cortina Games, “It felt at times the world stood still as we witnessed the triumph and heartbreaks of the best athletes in the world.”
Watching Olympians and Paralympics compete, Bullock said he “felt the power of the Games.”
It showed how the Games can “bring the world together under the umbrella of sport,” he said. “Team USA brought our country together — we were all Americans, regardless of geography, political party, ethnicity, or economic strata.”
Utah is the “next next” Winter Games host, following the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps. and organizers already “feel the weight of responsibility and the excitement of the opportunity,” Bullock said.
It’s a chance, he said, “to elevate the Games to new heights, to create new experiences, to see the best in the world compete at our magnificent venues, and for the world to experience the incredible Utah welcoming spirit. The power of the Games will be in our hands to do good.”