U.S. Para Swimmers Are Gearing Up To Cheer On Their Winter Counterparts In Milano Cortina

Taylor Winnett made her Paralympic debut as a swimmer in Paris in 2024, but there was a time when she was thinking of trading in the pool for something a little colder.

Winnett started playing sled hockey after a series of injuries in 2016 was even planning to try out for the women’s national team just before COVID hit.

“So that never happened, and then my swimming career kind of took off,” the 26-year-old from Hershey, Pennsylvania, said. “I haven’t been on a sled since 2020, but I love watching sled hockey and I love playing sled hockey.”

Sled hockey is one of the premier sports in the Paralympic Winter Games, which open in Milano Cortina on March 6, and Winnett isn’t the only member of the U.S. Para swimming team who plans to tune in to the Games and cheer on their winter sports counterparts. The sled hockey team has the chance to join the U.S. men’s and women’s Olympic hockey teams as gold medalists, and those chances are very good as the four-time defending gold medalists.

In total, a U.S. team of around 70 athletes is set to compete across five sports in Milano Cortina. Continuing a trend from recent years, this year’s Games will include extensive coverage across the NBCUniversal platforms, including a record eight hours on NBC and every event available live or on replay via Peacock.

The sled hockey gold-medal game is once again a marquee event this year, with NBC slated to broadcast it live on Sunday March 15, the final day of the Games.

Technically, sled hockey is a mixed-gender sport at the Paralympics, but only three women worldwide have ever played at that level and none from the U.S. Winnett would like to see that change with the inclusion of a separate women’s sled hockey competition.

“And I low-key would want to play for them,” she said.

Winnett found adaptive sports through an organization called the Bennett Blazers in Baltimore. She tried wheelchair basketball and sled hockey, and although the first didn’t stick, she loved sled hockey. She was able to borrow a sled and other gear and played once a week with the Blazers and once a week with the Wounded Warrior program in Rockville, Maryland.

“I did get a concussion, and I blame that on why I got a C-plus in calculus,” she joked. “A lot of men who play sled hockey are amputees, and you would think a woman with both her legs would

weigh about the same as a man missing one or two, but that wasn’t the case. I tried to check a guy and bounced off him and went headfirst into the boards. I tried my best.”

Winnett isn’t the only U.S. swimmer who’s tried their skills on the ice, either. Since retiring from swimming, David Gelfand has competed in both Para climbing and sled hockey, joining the Tampa Bay Lightning sled team at the USA Hockey National Championship in 2024 and scoring two goals in four games.

Other members of the U.S. Para swim team shared what they loved watching at last month’s Winter Olympics and are looking forward to watching at this month’s Winter Paralympics.

There’s not much ice around Noah Jaffe’s hometown of Carlsbad, California, but that hasn’t stopped the 2024 Paralympian from falling for curling. Although the sport enjoyed a surge in popularity in the U.S. when the men’s team won the country’s first and only Olympic gold medal in 2018, curling remains a niche sport in this country.

“A lot of my family is from Canada, so I’ve heard a little more about the sport, maybe, than most Americans have,” Jaffe said. “I think it’s a lot more technical than people realize. There’s a lot of skill that goes into it. I’ve tried it before and I was very bad at it, but I think it’s a really cool sport.”

Wheelchair curling made its Paralympic debut at the 2006 Winter Games in Torino as a mixed team event, and this year the discipline of mixed doubles will make its debut.

Two-time Paralympic swimmer Gia Pergolini has a visual impairment, but she’s able to follow events if she’s close to the television. She said her favorite Winter Olympic sport to watch is figure skating.

“I think it’s so beautiful,” Pergolini said. “In another alternate universe I would have been an ice skater. I don’t really follow it, but it’s my favorite sport to watch. I just love the music and the artistry behind it. It’s so pretty.”

Anastasia Pagonis also had a visual impairment, and over the past year she’s taken her social media followers along as she’s hit the slopes on both a snowboard and skis. The two-time Paralympian recently posted a hype video about the Winter Paralympics highlighting some athletes to watch. She kicked it off by asking her legions of followers, “What if you could watch an Olympian snowboard on one leg, or a skier going 80 miles per hour downhill blindfolded? That’s the Paralympics.”