They competed in para alpine skiing and para cross-country skiing at the last FISU World University Games. At the Paralympics, they added para biathlon to their list of skills! Congratulations to the ten new medallists who took part to both events on the Italian snow.
They come from France, Germany, Spain, Poland and Finland, they competed in many different categories and shone on the Italian snow both at the Torino 2025 FISU World University Games and at the recent Milano Cortina Paralympics. And together they claimed 24 medals: 🥇 four gold, 🥈nine silver and 🥉eleven bronze!
Our “queen” is undoubtedly Audrey Pascual Seco. The Spanish para-alpine skier won four medals in total in the sitting category, two gold (super G and AC Slalom), one silver downhill) and one bronze (slalom) ! She had already been super impressive in Torino last year, where she had claimed a gold and a silver medal.
Two other former student-athletes also won four medals each. The first one is also an alpine skier, but from France. Aurélie Richard won three silver medals (downhill, super G and AC slalom) and one bronze (giant slalom) in the standing category on the slopes of Tofane Alpine Skiing Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The other talented para student-athlete to take four medals home is cross-country skier Marco Maier from Germany. At the Torino 2025 FISU World University Games he has won gold in the men’s sprint classic standing. At the Paralympics, “only” one of his medals was in para cross-country skiing (silver in the open 4×2,5km relay). The other three were all bronze and all in para biathlon (sprint, individual and sprint pursuit)!
Germany performed really well in Italy. Leonie Walter followed her teammate closely wining three bronze medals. Two of them in para cross-country skiing (10k IS Classic VI and sprint pursuit vision impaired) and one in para biathlon pursuit VI).
Last but not least German to be crowned, Johanna Recktenwald, who had won two silver medals at the Torino 2025 FISU Games in para cross-country won the women’s individual VI bronze medal in para biathlon et Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Val di Fiemme
Of course, France’s standing alpine skier Arthur Bauchet, already a Paralympian, was expected by everyone at Milano Cortina. And he didn’t fail to satisfy his fans, winning two gold medals (AC slalom and giant slalom) and the downhill silver. Yet again a super performance for someone who was born… In Saint-Tropez, so not exactly surrounded by mountains!
His teammate Jules Segers, who competes in the exact same categories and who had won a bronze and a silver at the FISU Winter Games, took the Paralympic super G bronze medal.
Two more medals in para alpine skiing for former student-athletes. We find them around Poland’s Michal Golas‘ neck. Already super impressive last year in Bardonecchia during the FISU Games (two gold medals, in the super G VI and giant slalom VI), he claimed the silver in the slalom VI and the giant slalom VI bronze. What impressive regularity!
And let’s finish with… Finland! Para alpine skier Nette Kiviranta, who had won the title in giant slalom sitting at the Torino 2025 FISU World University Games won silver in slalom, both in the sitting category at the Milano Cortina Paralympics. Will she manage to get a gold medal at the next Changchun 2027 Winter Universiade next January?
Inkki Inola is a para student-athlete star, as he won two golds in cross-country (sprint classic VI and 10k individual free VI in Pragelato last year. Last week in Italy, he added the Paralympic 10k IS Classic VI silver medal to his collection. Congratulations!
Huge congratulations to all the medallists but of course also to all the other participants who surely travelled back from Italy with a lot of experience, which will no doubt help them in their careers. How many of them will chose to travel to China from 15-25 January 2027, for another chance to compete on the same courses and runs and on the same day as all the other specialists of their disciplines? Watch this space!
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