Winter Paralympics 2026: No UK government ministers or officials to attend opening or closing ceremonies

Britain’s flag bearers, ski duo Menna Fitzpatrick and Scott Meenagh, will not be at the ceremony as they are racing in Cortina the following day.

Instead they will feature alongside their ParalympicsGB teammates through a video series that will be shown as part of the parade.

“We made this decision [not to attend] We knew about a year ago that the opening ceremony would be as far away from where we were in the mountains,” Paralympic GB head of mission Phil Smith told BBC Sport.

“I think there are many countries in the same situation. We know that the athletes participating from Cortina will not return to the athletes’ village until two or three o’clock in the morning.

“All of our athletes here compete on the first day, so from a pure performance and sports perspective, it was never our intention to send athletes to the opening ceremony.”

The games will be held between March 6-15.