A view of the arena in Verona, Italy, where the opening ceremony for the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics takes place on March 6. The Paralympic Games are being overshadowed by military conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Luca Bruno/AP
MILAN — Airstrikes by Israel and the United States against Iran, and retaliatory strikes by Iran against neighboring countries, have violated the symbolic Olympic truce endorsed by the United Nations, which called for a suspension of military activity through March 15.
The clashes persisted Sunday as more than 660 elite athletes with disabilities from around the world — including delegations from Iran, Israel and the U.S. — converged in Italy for the Winter Paralympic Games.
At least one athlete has family members still stranded in Doha, Qatar, after fighting disrupted air travel. “They got on their flight from Doha to Venice and the flight turned around,” Michael Milton, a Paralympic alpine skier from Canberra, Australia, told NPR. He said his wife and two teenage children spent 24 hours in the airport before being given a hotel room. “They would love to get out of Doha and get to Italy, but there’s no timeline on that.”
Asked whether he feared for their safety, Milton said he hopes Doha’s air defenses will hold. “It’s obviously not a great area to be in. I would prefer they weren’t there, but I wouldn’t say I’m concerned about their safety at this point,” he said.
The idea of an Olympic truce dates back to the ninth century BC, when Greek leaders paused conflicts so athletes could travel to sacred Games. The concept was revived by Olympic authorities and the United Nations in the early 1990s amid the Balkans wars.
But truces have frequently been ignored. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 just as the Winter Paralympics were about to begin in Beijing.
Iran and Israel each qualified one athlete for the 2026 Paralympics. Abolfazl Khatibi, a 23-year-old para cross-country skier from Iran, and Sheina Vaspi, 24, from Israel, who is expected to race in para-alpine events, are both listed to compete.
NPR asked the International Paralympic Committee about the status of those two athletes but did not receive an immediate response.
The Milan-Cortina Paralympic Games were already clouded by diplomatic tensions after the IPC permitted athletes from Belarus and Russia to compete under their national flags, despite Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Allowing full national participation marks a break from policy since 2022, when athletes from those countries could only compete as neutrals. That decision has prompted protests and at least six countries have announced they will boycott the opening ceremonies in Verona on March 6.