Paralympics Milan Cortina 2026, two more golds arrive: rejoice Luchini and (again) Perathoner

Italian snowboarder Jacopo Luchini took the gold medal in the banked slalom, a race marked by two heats in which the person with the best overall time wins, at the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milan, Italy, in the SB-UL category reserved for athletes with upper limb disabilities. A few minutes later another success also came, that of Emanuel Perathoner in the banked slalom SB-LL2 (lower limb disability).

Luchini, 35, was born with left hand aplasia and has been participating in competitions dedicated to athletes with disabilities for years now. He had previously starred in the World Cup and the World Championships, but until now he had precisely missed a Paralympic medal. In Pyeongchang 2018 he missed the podium by just two hundredths, while in Beijing 2022 he finished fifth in the banked slalom and sixth in the snowboard cross. Perathoner, born in 1986, in turn won his first Paralympic medals in Milan Cortina.

Francesco Lucivero

For Italy, those obtained by Luchini and Perathoner are, in the order, total medals number eleven and twelve: the total is five gold, six silver and one bronze. In addition to the twoe Paralympic snowboarding champions, Chiara Mazzell (led by Nicola Cotti Cottini), winner of the visually impaired and blind super-giant, and Giacomo Bertagnolli (led by Andrea Ravelli), first place in the visually impaired and blind Paralympic combined, can also boast gold in the Milano Cortina event.

Mazzel also won three silvers (downhill, combined and giant slalom visually impaired and blind), while Bertagnolli also brought home a silver in the Super-G and a bronze in the downhill visually impaired and blind. The other medals, both silver, finally bear the signature of Federico Pelizzari in the combined standing and René De Silvestro in the combined sitting.

With a total of twelve medals, Italy achieved the same number of podiums added up in the previous two editions of the Games: in Pyeongchang, in fact, five medals (two gold, two silver and one bronze) had come, in Beijing seven (two gold, three silver and two bronze).