Enough geopolitical talk, space for the Games

They all glide on the ice at this Paralympics, without being professional skaters. Slipping, in a balancing act, Andrew Parsons, president of the Ipc, the International Paralympic Committee, who recalled the numbers: 612 athletes from 56 countries, as had never happened in the 50 years of the Paralympic Winter Games, but who knows how geopolitical turbulence is dust in the air; slipping the countries that boycotted the ceremony in disagreement with the Ipc's decision to readmit Russians and Belarusians to the competitions, with anthem and flag; slipping athletes and countries that will not be able to be there because of the new war in the Middle East. And yet, tonight at the Arena in Verona, made accessible with a 20.5 million euro investment (perhaps one of Milan Cortina's most important legacies), the ceremony will be staged, 'positive, smiling, courageous, radical, involving. In the sign of art," says Alfredo Accatino, president and artistic director of Filmmaster. "Life in motion" will be animated by Chiara Bersani, performer and visual artist of the international scene, Dardust, who signs the soundtrack, musician Stewart Copeland, historic drummer of the Police, the Italian electronic trio Meduza, with tributes to the artists Jago and Emilio Isgrò. And then, lights, colours, 56 volunteers with the names of the participating countries (and for some of these also the athletes), President Sergio Mattarella to declare the XIV Paralympic Games open, and then the lighting of the brazier.

This is also a record edition for Italia: 42 athletes and 3 guides, better than Turin 2006 (40 then), with the visually impaired skier Giacomo Bertagnolli who could become a multiple medallist in the entire event. And then the other Italian skiers, Renè De Silvestro and Chiara Mazzel (who had been designated as standard-bearers), and the cross-country skiers, with Beppe Romele, already bronze medallist in Beijing, the snowboarders Jacopo Luchini and Emanuel Perathoner (although yesterday, during training, Riccardo Cardani fell, broke his helmet and lost consciousness for about 45 seconds) and the para ice hockey and curling teams. It should be noted that this is a record for Italia, but the rest of the world has been able to run more in Paralympic winter sports if it is true that from Turin 2006 (474 total athletes) to Milan Cortina 2026 (612) the increase is 29%, with a significant leap in the women's field (99 girls in Turin, 176 today, + 77%), while our Azzurri will only be five (6 in Turin). The project of the CIP, the Italian Paralympic Committee, to identify in each region a centre of reference for starting sport, could give a boost to increase the number of Azzurri in winter sports, just as the live broadcasts on RAI and the many daily programmes will be important for sharing the races and the spirit of these Games: when sport enters homes, it knows how to attract attention and transform sensitivities: athletes are not heroes but men and women who have broken down barriers and reached the heights of sport. Another key is the eyes of children and their participation: if you are 7, 8, 10 years old and see a wheelchair athlete with a gold medal around his neck, you will forever think that anything is possible. So, welcome the 20,000 tickets that the Milan Cortina Foundation will distribute in schools and the possibility of seeing the competitions live: 89% of the tickets cost less than 35 euro, with 10 euro tickets for the under 14s.

The Paralympics are starting, it is an opportunity to remember that silent 'nation' represented by the 1.3 billion people with disabilities in the world, i.e. 15% of the total population, it is a transformative moment on which the international political agenda has entered with a bang: 'sport is a magical, fantastic device', begins Moris Gasparri, essayist and sports scholar, 'which, when, a century ago, with Europe at the centre of the world, the great international events were created, emphasised the themes of harmony, unity and peace: today this is no longer the case and the turmoil of the Paralympics proves it'. The multipolar world, with no innocents, with international law trampled underfoot, no longer accepts sport as we know it, and sport itself finds it hard to accept countries that violate rights, but it cannot do without it: 'Today's great empires, which act in the name of the law of force, cannot renounce sporting events, which are important scenarios for making propaganda, sending messages to their compatriots and accrediting themselves with their adversaries. For example, China won the medal table in Beijing 2022 and will do even better here: it has invested heavily and in the Paralympic world it exhibits a technological industry of excellence in which young people dream of bionic hands and exoskeletons. Today, even sport lays bare the weakness of Europe, humiliated, without a helmsman, vassal of the great empires. It is a good thing instead that Italia, thanks to the closeness of the Head of State, has seen the growth of sporting culture, especially the Paralympic one, nourished also by the fiduciary relationship between the President and Luca Pancalli'. Milan Cortina begins and perhaps will also make the geopolitical history of sport, poised on the too many faults of the world and fear.