The 2026 Winter Paralympics opened Friday, marking the Games' 50th anniversary. Team USA sent 72 athletes to compete across six sports, with 20 women set to represent the US in Milan — including the most decorated Winter Paralympian in US history.
This year, Team USA athletes will feature across women's para alpine skiing, para cross-country skiing, para biathlon, and para snowboard. Spanning three generations of Paralympic competition, US women's sports veterans like Oksana Masters will compete alongside first-time competitors like Audrey Crowley.
Here are five US women's sports athletes to watch at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milano-Cortina.
Oksana Masters, Para Cross-Country Skiing and Para Biathlon
Masters holds 19 Paralympic medals total — 14 from the Winter Games and five from the Summer Games. The 36-year-old won seven medals across seven events at Beijing 2022, becoming the first US athlete to achieve the feat.
Born in Ukraine and adopted into a US family, Masters had both legs amputated before the age of 14. She later began her international career with para rowing at London 2012, before transitioning to winter sports at Sochi 2014.
A recent bone infection subsequently sidelined her entire 2024/25 season, returning weeks before the 2026 Games. Despite the setbacks, she dominated the 2025/26 World Cup circuit. She finished no lower than second in any individual cross-country event and won five of her last seven biathlon races. She later claimed the overall FIS Para Cross-Country World Cup title and secured the Big Crystal Globe.
Masters's winter medals include three cross-country and two biathlon golds, while her summer medals include four cycling golds and one rowing bronze.
How to Watch Oksana Masters at the 2026 Winter Paralympics
Masters will launch her 2026 Paralympic campaign with para biathlon on Saturday, March 7th, before competing in para cross-country skiing on March 10th. All events will be broadcast live on Paramount+.
Kendall Gretsch, Para Biathlon and Para Cross-Country Skiing
Kendall Gretsch made history at PyeongChang 2018 when she topped the 6-kilometer biathlon podium, becoming the first US athlete to win Olympic or Paralympic biathlon gold. She went on to also take gold in the 12-kilometer cross-country race at PyeongChang.
Born with Spina Bifida, multi-season athlete later won triathlon gold at Tokyo 2020. She returned to the snow in 2022 to claim a complete medal set — gold, silver, and bronze — across Beijing's biathlons. She enters Milano-Cortina with seven Paralympic medals under her belt.
"Whatever season I'm in, that's what I am fully focused on," she told the IPC ahead of the 2026 Winter Games. "It is one sport at a time and focusing on that versus trying to do everything all year long."
This year, the 33-year-old finished second behind Masters in the 2025/26 cross-country World Cup and fourth in the biathlon World Cup. She holds 34 world championship medals across triathlon, cross-country skiing, and biathlon — including 19 gold.
How to Watch Kendall Gretsch at the 2026 Winter Paralympics
Gretsch will open her 2026 Paralympic run with para biathlon on Saturday, March 7th, before competing in para cross-country skiing on March 10th. All events will be broadcast live on Paramount+.
Brenna Huckaby, Para Snowboard
30-year-old para snowboard legend Brenna Huckaby holds three Paralympic gold medals and one bronze. After losing her leg to bone cancer at 14, Huckaby discovered snowboarding and quickly excelled in the sport.
Huckaby won two golds at PyeongChang 2018. However, the IPC excluded the LL-1 class from 2022's snowboard events, effectively banning Huckaby and other athletes with severe lower-limb disabilities from competing. While the IPC initially barred her from participating as an LL-2 athlete, the Louisiana native fought the ruling and eventually won a court injunction in Germany. Hitting the slopes in Beijing, she went on to claim gold in banked slalom and bronze in snowboard cross.
Huckaby enters the Milano-Cortina games with five world championships and two ESPY awards in addition to her Paralympic medal count.
How to Watch Brenna Huckaby at the 2026 Winter Paralympics
Huckaby kicks off her 2026 Paralympic run with para snowboard cross on Saturday, March 7th, before dropping in for para snowboard slalom on March 14th. All events will be broadcast live on Paramount+.
Audrey Crowley, Para Alpine Skiing
Born without her lower right arm, 19-year-old Paralympic debutant Audrey Crowley first gained attention for skiing as a second-grader. And last month, she reached the podium in two World Cup downhill races.
Crowley finished the 2024/25 World Cup season with two podium finishes in giant slalom. She took bronze in giant slalom and placed fifth in slalom at world championships, before officials canceled her three additional events.
"It really is that peak of ski racing for me, having that exhilaration, the jumps, the big long turns," the Colorado native said ahead of this weekend's Winter Games. "Everyone is just starting to arrive at the [Olympic and Paralympic] village. We've been trading pins, eating at the dining hall together."
How to Watch Audrey Crowley at the 2026 Winter Paralympics
Crowley opens her 2026 Paralympic alpine skiing campaign with downhill standing on Saturday, March 7th, before kicking off Super-G standing on March 9th, giant slalom standing on March 10th, and slalom standing on March 14th. All events will be broadcast live on Paramount+.
Meg Gustafson, Para Alpine Skiing
16-year-old Minnesota native Meg Gustafson was born with a condition affecting the ligaments in her eyes, leading to limited vision. The youngest member of Team USA, Gustafson competes with her older brother Spenser as her guide.
"He's the best brother you could imagine and an amazing skier," Gustafson told Vail Daily in 2025. "I definitely think it brings us closer and we have a little bit of a different way of communicating than some of the other teams."
Skiing talents extend beyond Gustafson's brother, as their father raced alpine skiing for Boston College and taught her to ski at a young age. She finished no lower than fourth in every race she attempted leading up to the 2026 Winter Paralympics, winning seven consecutive FIS races in giant slalom, slalom, and super-G.
"As my dad tells me, I always approach every day like I am that Paralympian that I want to be," she added. "So I just go into the mindset that I can do it."
How to Watch Meg Gustafson at the 2026 Winter Paralympics
Gustafson will compete in all five Paralympic alpine disciplines — slalom, giant slalom, super-G, downhill, and super combined — starting with downhill vision impaired on March 7th. All events will be broadcast live on Paramount+.
Women's para ice hockey will not compete at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Italy, despite a men's tournament taking place. Both athletes and the associated governing bodies have now shifted their focus to the 2030 Paralympic Games in the French Alps.
The sport reached a major milestone in August 2025 when Slovakia hosted the first-ever women's Para Ice Hockey World Championships. The men's World Championships predates the women's by more than 25 years.
USA Hockey defeated rival Canada 7-1 in the inaugural gold medal game. The tournament featured teams from Norway, Great Britain, Australia, and Team World, with Kelsey DiClaudio earning tournament MVP honors for Team USA.
"This event itself, it felt groundbreaking and hopefully it is groundbreaking," DiClaudio said in August.
The sport needs more fully functioning national teams to qualify for Paralympic inclusion. Team World represented a step forward at Worlds, featuring athletes from nine different countries aiming to help grow the sport in their home nations.
"We're not going to stop until we get to the Paralympics," DiClaudio continued. "My teammates and I, we dream of being Paralympians."
With the 2026 Winter Paralympics decision in the books, the sport remains focused on 2030. The World Championship has also become an annual event, providing regular international competition between Winter Games.
USA head coach Rose Misiewicz acknowledged the work ahead. "To get to the Paralympics would be a dream," she said. "The World Championships were a huge milestone that needed to be accomplished, and we have some more milestones to go."
Every Wednesday in February, JWS celebrates Black History Month by spotlighting a prominent Black figure in women's sports history.
Team USA skier Bonnie St. John broke barriers in Innsbruck, Austria, in 1984, when she became the first-ever African-American athlete to win a Paralympic medal at the Winter Games.
A one-legged amputee from childhood, St. John taught herself to ski at 15 years old using photocopied instructions and donated gear, going on to train at Vermont's Burke Mountain Academy and later qualifying for the 1984 Games with the US Paralympic Ski Team.
There, the San Diego product took bronze in both the slalom and giant slalom races before winning silver for overall performance across the three alpine skiing disciplines — making her the world's second fastest woman on one leg that year.
Following her athletic career, St. John graduated from Harvard and became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, then later served as director for the National Economic Council under President Clinton and launched a career in corporate leadership.
"I'm not only just a role model to say, 'See what I did, you can do it, too,' but to actually give people the tools and the techniques and the research to understand how to break through those barriers," St. John said. "I love that I get to do that."
The US Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) announced an official policy change this week, issuing a ban on transgender athletes from competing for Team USA in the women's categories at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The new policy cites President Trump's recent anti-trans athlete Executive Order 14201 alongside 1998's Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act.
"As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations," USOPC president Gene Sykes and CEO Sarah Hirshland said in an internal memo on Wednesday.
The USOPC oversees some 50 national governing bodies across sports, including at the youth and masters levels, as well as Team USA's participation in all official Olympic and Paralympic competitions.
The new ban effectively overrides any and all guidelines previously set by various sport governing bodies in the US, and joins the growing number of prohibitive policies affecting primarily transgender women athletes worldwide.
The revised segment — part of the larger USOPC Athlete Safety Policy — does not explicitly use the word "transgender," nor does it explain the ban's function, scope, or application to men's sports.
Notably, only one openly trans athlete has ever competed for the US at the Olympic Games: Nonbinary runner Nikki Hiltz, who was assigned female at birth, participated in 1500-meter track event at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
"By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes," National Women's Law Center president and CEO Fatima Goss Graves said in a statement condemning the policy change.
"This rule change is not in response to new research or new guidelines from medical experts in sports," posted advocacy nonprofit Athlete Ally. "Instead, it is the result of mounting political pressure and government hostility toward one of the smallest minorities in society, let alone sports."
The US Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame announced their Class of 2025 on Tuesday, with this year's iconic cohort headlined by tennis titan Serena Williams and track legend Allyson Felix.
Alongside four-time Olympic gold medalist Williams and seven-time gold medalist Felix — the most decorated woman in Olympic track and field history with 11 total medals — four other women and one women's team snagged spots in the 2025 class.
Joining the pair are gymnastics icon Gabby Douglas, a two-time team gold medalist and the first Black woman to take individual all-around gold in Olympic history, and three-time beach volleyball gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings.
Additional inductees include the gold medal-winning 2004 USA women's wheelchair basketball Paralympic team, five-time Paralympic gold medalist in track Marla Runyan — the only US athlete to have competed in both the Paralympic and Olympic Games — and multi-sport specialist Susan Hagel.
Hagel competed in six Paralympic Games across three different sports — archery, track and field, and wheelchair basketball — picking up four gold and two bronze medals along the way.
Barrier-breakers honored as Class of 2025 Legends
Also earning Hall of Fame honors are two trailblazing Black women, named as the Legends of the Class of 2025.
Renowned volleyball player and 1984 silver medalist Flo Hyman — whose work to bolster Title IX as well as her role helping Team USA to their first-ever Olympic medal in women's volleyball were crucial to growing the sport in the US — will be posthumously celebrated.
Honored alongside Hyman will be 1976 Olympic bronze medalist Anita DeFrantz, the first and only Black woman to medal in rowing.
DeFrantz, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) first-ever woman member, is still helping to make Olympic history, casting the deciding vote to elect the IOC's first woman president this past March.
The Class of 2025 is the 18th overall group and first since 2022 to enter the Hall of Fame.
Following their July 12th induction, the US Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame will bloom to 210 individual and team members.
The Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) is celebrating National Girls & Women in Sports Day (NGWSD) this week in Washington, DC
Founded by Billie Jean King in 1974, the organization held the first NGWSD 39 years ago. To "amplify the monumental moments being seen across women's sports," the WSF arranged local programming honoring the February 5th event.
This year's edition kicked off yesterday with a youth sports clinic led by the WNBA's Washington Mystics and AU student-athletes. Other activations included a panel discussion and workshops.
"For 50 years and counting, the Women's Sports Foundation's vast research has continued to prove that a powerful way to positively impact society's future is by investing in girls' and women's sports," said WSF CEO Danette Leighton.
"This National Girls & Women in Sports Day, we are back in the nation's capital to both celebrate the momentum throughout the women's sports ecosystem and to ensure progress continues, so that all girls and women have a chance to play and reap the lifelong benefits of sport."
WSF spends National Girls & Women in Sports Day on Capitol Hill
Today, WSF leadership, athletes, coaches, and industry pros met with members of Congress on Capitol Hill. They discussed the issues impacting women's sports athletes, proposed legislation to level the playing field, and the economic benefits of sports equity.
Participants across the week's events include: WSF president and Paralympian Scout Bassett; WNBA legend and Mystics Hall of Famer Alana Beard; Women's College World Series champion Rachel Garcia; Hall of Fame NCAA women's basketball head coach Muffet McGraw; and two-time NWSL champion Mana Shim, among others.
"As a Paralympian, I know more must be done to get additional girls and women in the game and advocate for policies that bolster inclusion and eliminate barriers, especially for those with disabilities," said Bassett. "It is my hope that National Girls & Women in Sports Day encourages positive conversations that will lead to lasting change so all girls and women can play, compete and lead — in sports and beyond."
Promoting inclusion for all women's sports athletes
WSF sets itself apart from recent political initiatives focused on prohibiting trans athletes from participating in sports in accordance with their gender identity. Instead, the foundation outspokenly advocates for the inclusion of trans and intersex women's sports athletes.
Accordingly, in a 2016 position statement, the foundation said that it "supports the right of all athletes, including transgender athletes, to participate in athletic competition that is fair, equitable, and respectful to all."
The WSF doubled down in 2022. They subsequently penned a letter to the NCAA imploring them to revise their exclusionary Transgender Athlete Participation Policy.
25 additional organizations endorsed the pro-inclusion letter. Together, they echoed the WSF motto "All girls. All women. All sports."
The USA wheelchair basketball team and sitting volleyball team will both compete for Paralympic gold this weekend, after thrilling semifinal wins in the final days of the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.
USA sitting volleyball took down Brazil 3-1 in their semifinal on Thursday, and will continue their long-held Paralympic rivalry against China on Saturday at 1:30pm ET. The US will be going for their third-straight gold medal in the event, after finishing atop the podium in 2016 and 2020.
On Sunday, the US wheelchair basketball team will take on the Netherlands in a gold medal rematch of group play at 7:45am ET, in search of their first Paralympic gold since 2016.
Breaking through
US wheelchair basketball reached their first Paralympic gold medal game since Rio on Friday with a thrilling 50-47 win over China, exacting revenge on the squad who defeated them in their semifinal in Tokyo.
Rose Hollerman led the team in scoring with 20 points, and Chicago native Ixhelt Gonzalez scored 11 points off the bench after a game-clinching performance against Great Britain in the team's quarterfinal.
On Friday, the US struggled at times with China's full court defense, but a strong third quarter performance prompted a comeback from a halftime deficit, and Team USA proved clinical enough at the free throw line to hold off a late fourth quarter push.
The US will now look to erase their only loss of the tournament thus far, taking on the Netherlands for gold after falling to the Dutch 69-56 in their second game of group play.
Familiar gold medal opponent
USA sitting volleyball's gold medal foe is very familiar, as the US and China have played each other for Paralympic gold in every Games since 2008, with China's Paralympic final streak dating back to 2004.
The US are the reigning champions, winning gold in 2020 and 2016 after falling to China in 2012 and 2008.
Team USA will look for another strong match from outside hitter Katie Holloway Bridge, who led all scorers with 21 points in the team's semifinal win over Brazil.
They will be looking for a little bit of revenge themselves, after falling to China in their Paralympic opener during group play.
TEAM USA WILL PLAY FOR GOLD!
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) September 5, 2024
Women's sitting volleyball moves onto the FINAL after a win over Brazil. 🇺🇸 #ParisParalympics pic.twitter.com/iQuOjNI2i0
“The team’s gone through a lot since they’ve been here," head coach Bill Hamiter said after the match. "To come together and keep playing, and play well enough to get into that championship match was good."
The 2024 Paris Paralympics kicked off on Wednesday, with swimming, wheelchair basketball, dancing Phrygian Caps, and more taking center stage this week.
With 549 medal events spanning 22 sports, a record 4,400 athletes from 168 delegations, plus the most women's sports athletes and events in competition history, this year's Paralympics are capping off an exceptional summer of international sports.
How the Paralympics work
An international multi-sport event for athletes with disabilities, the Paralympics operates separately from the Olympic Games despite sharing a host country as well as most venues. Some sports — like swimming, track, basketball, and volleyball — have direct Olympic counterparts, while other sports like boccia and goalball are unique to the Paralympics.
According to the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, para-sport athletes must have at least one of these 10 eligible underlying conditions to qualify for the Games: impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, short stature, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis, vision impairment, or intellectual impairment.
Athletes then square off in different classifications based on the type of disability they have — visual, physical, or intellectual — as well as how much their disability impacts their ability to compete in the event.
Swimmers start Team USA's medal haul
The US earned their first three medals on Thursday — all silver and all in women's swimming. Ellie Marks earned her silver in the 50-meter freestyle S6, Christie Raleigh-Crossley took silver in the 50-meter freestyle S10, and Grace Nuhfer took silver in the 100-meter butterfly S13.
On Friday, Team USA Paralympic swimmer Gia Pergolini won gold in the 100-meter backstroke S13 race, claiming first place ahead of Ireland's Róisín Ní Ríain and Italy's Carlotta Gilli. Also on Friday, Ellie Marks medaled again, capturing silver in this morning's 200-meter individual medley SM6.
Also making history this week was wheelchair rugby player Sarah Adam, who became the first woman Paralympian to compete for Team USA in the sport.
Masters, Long lead Team USA at the Paris Paralympics
US Paralympic legend Oksana Masters returned for the Paris Games, carrying the torch in Wednesday's Opening Ceremony. Next week, she'll hit the pavement in the H5 Road Race and H4-5 Individual Time Trial para cycling events.
With 29 Paralympic medals to her name, decorated Team USA swimmer Jessica Long is also back at this year's Games. She plans to compete in four events at this year's Paralympics: Saturday's 100-meter backstroke S8, Sunday's 200-meter individual medley SM8, Wednesday's 400-meter freestyle S8, and the following Saturday's 100-meter butterfly S8.
Joining them in Paris is Rio Paralympic gold medalist and Team USA's lead scorer in wheelchair basketball that year, Becca Murray, who came out of retirement to help her squad better their Tokyo bronze medal performance. Her team beat Germany 73-44 in group stage play earlier today.
Another Tokyo standout, Katie Holloway Bridge, will attempt to guide the US sitting volleyball team to a third-straight Paralympic gold after earning tournament MVP in the 2021 Games. Team USA sitting volleyball fell to China 3-1 today in their first pool stage match.