{"id":291860,"date":"2026-02-19T15:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T15:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/291860\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T15:15:21","slug":"milano-cortina-paralympics-boycott-backed-by-ukrainian-new-zealand-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/291860\/","title":{"rendered":"Milano-Cortina Paralympics boycott backed by Ukrainian New Zealand community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cMany Russian elite athletes operate within state-controlled sporting structures closely linked to government institutions, and many openly support the regime. <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The International Paralympic Committee has said Russian athletes can compete under their country's flag at the Milano-Cortina games. Photo \/ Getty Images\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The International Paralympic Committee has said Russian athletes can compete under their country&#8217;s flag at the Milano-Cortina games. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cNational symbols \u2013 the flag and anthem \u2013 are instruments of state identity and cannot be separated from the actions of that state.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">Russia has been largely banned from international sport since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">Before that, Russian athletes had not competed at the Paralympics under their nation\u2019s flag since the 2014 games because of Russia\u2019s state-sponsored doping programme. <\/p>\n<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe urge international sporting organisations to reconsider the broader implications of this decision and to stand on the side of integrity, responsibility, and justice,\u201d UANZ said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">Paralympics NZ has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">New Zealand will be sending two athletes to the Paralympic Winter Games, running from March 6-15, with both competing in alpine skiing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"nfOBuVOCysHhj\" style=\"display:none\">Adam Hall will be taking part in his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/sport\/paralympics\/winter-paralympics-adam-hall-named-for-record-equalling-campaign-in-milano-cortina-alongside-corey-peters\/VBOW6RHTUFFNZFG3C5QTLQFT4M\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/sport\/paralympics\/winter-paralympics-adam-hall-named-for-record-equalling-campaign-in-milano-cortina-alongside-corey-peters\/VBOW6RHTUFFNZFG3C5QTLQFT4M\/\">record-equalling sixth Winter Paralympics<\/a>, while Corey Peters will look to add more medals to the gold he won in Beijing four years ago. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMany Russian elite athletes operate within state-controlled sporting structures closely linked to government institutions, and many openly support&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,696,16669,34609,17099,147286,3595,8615,1259,39789,124,18940,6489,209,305,154808,117,111,43,139,69,10711,94585,161306,8221,1886,1361,165,100172,8238,23644,80,24750],"class_list":["post-291860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-announced","tag-athletes","tag-backed","tag-boycott","tag-boycotting","tag-by","tag-come","tag-community","tag-compete","tag-could","tag-flag","tag-games","tag-group","tag-have","tag-milanocortina","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officials","tag-paralympic","tag-paralympics","tag-russian","tag-support","tag-that","tag-their","tag-ukrainian","tag-under","tag-winter","tag-zealand","tag-zealanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}