The 2026 Winter Paralympics came to an end on Sunday with a glitzy closing ceremony in Cortina as China topped the medal table of a Games that saw several countries protest the decision to allow Russian athletes to compete under their national flag for the first time since 2014.
Amid a global back-drop of war in the Middle East and Russia's ongoing offensive in Ukraine, International Paralympic Committee President (IPC) Andrew Parsons told the Games' Paralympians that they "rose above pressure, expectation and global tension to keep the focus where it belongs: on you and your sport".
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