Italians erupt in applause for Russian and Belarusian athletes – social media

Moscow is competing in the Winter Paralympics under its national flag for the first time in more than a decade

Italians have erupted in applause for Russian and Belarusian athletes as they held the flags of their countries in Verona at the 2026 Paralympic Games, a video circulating on social media shows.

“Welcome back,” the group of well-wishers reportedly told the athletes.

Russia has won its first Winter Paralympic medals since 2014, with Varvara Voronchikhina and Aleksey Bugaev taking bronze in the women’s and men’s downhill standing events in Italy earlier on Saturday.

The Russian Paralympic team was cleared to compete once more in January, after Moscow won an appeal in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. The body was still barring athletes from Russia despite the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) fully reinstating Russian and Belarusian participation last year.

Many Russian athletes were banned from competing after a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation in 2015, following allegations of state-sponsored doping – which Moscow has consistently denied.

Dozens of the bans were later overturned on appeal at the CAS, which said there had been insufficient evidence to impose sanctions.

The Milano Paralympics opened on Friday, and is set to run until March 15. The Russian Paralympians will compete in snowboarding on Sunday.