{"id":51930,"date":"2026-03-07T10:22:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T10:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=51930"},"modified":"2026-03-07T10:22:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T10:22:01","slug":"c89k598z28poat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/03\/07\/c89k598z28poat_mediumrssat_campaignrss\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Paralympics 2026: Varvara Voronchikhina wins Russia&#8217;s first medal of Milan-Cortina Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That ban had been in place since 2022 following Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine on the eve of the Winter Paralympics four years ago, although it was softened the following year to allow athletes to compete as neutrals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Russian flag has not been flown at a Paralympic Games or shown on the medal table since Sochi 2014, firstly because of the country&#8217;s state-sponsored doping scandal, before the Ukraine war led to those further sanctions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Voronchikhina, 23, finished 2.47 seconds shy of the gold medal-winning time set by Sweden&#8217;s Ebba Aarsjoe in the standing downhill event in Cortina, while France&#8217;s Aurelie Richard took silver.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Because of the outright ban of all Russian athletes from the Beijing Games four years ago, Voronchikhina is competing at her first Paralympics, despite being a two-time world champion in the Para-alpine skiing events.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She will compete in five further disciplines during these Games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After returning to competition in January, Voronchikhina won four medals at her first World Cup in Saalbach, Austria, before double slalom gold in Feldberg, Germany, later in the month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Winter #Paralympics #Varvara #Voronchikhina #wins #Russias #medal #MilanCortina #Games<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That ban had been in place since 2022 following Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine on the eve of the Winter Paralympics&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51932,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51930\/revisions\/51932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}