military attacks by the United States, Israel and Iran<\/a>. The conflicts prompted travel difficulties for some of the nations coming to Italy because of widespread flight disruptions. Iran was due to have one skier at Milan-Cortina, although his participation was yet to be confirmed.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are here to do a job,\u201d U.S. wheelchair curler Laura Dwyer told the Associated Press on Thursday. \u201cWe are in the village, and we are at the venue, and we are working really hard to show up, and to do good things, and represent. So that\u2019s what we are focused on, and no place I\u2019d rather be than this beautiful place with this guy right here and at the Paralympic Games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dwyer is competing with Stephen Emt in the mixed-doubles discipline that is debuting at the Winter Paralympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are just concerned with the ice, concerned with the stones and the competition,\u201d Emt said. \u201cWe know that we are in a good place and we are going to continue to battle for the USA.\u201d<\/p>\n
The curling competition began two days ahead of the opening ceremony and other curlers have weighed in about competing amid the conflicts elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, I don\u2019t really think about it,\u201d British curler Jo Butterfield said. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of things going on in the world right now, but I\u2019ve been training to do this for a long time and we\u2019re here to curl. I\u2019m a firm believer that sport can rally people, and hopefully some good news stories on the back pages will help the public be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opening ceremony will also come amid the boycott of some nations showing solidarity with Ukraine over the return to the Russian flag and anthem.<\/p>\n
Russian athletes will compete under their own flag at the Paralympics for the first time in more than a decade, and the country\u2019s national anthem could be played for gold medalists for the first time on the stage of a major global sporting event since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
Ukraine was the first to announce that it would boycott the opening ceremony because of Russia, and the International Paralympic Committee says several others are planning not to attend because of political reasons: the Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Poland, and Lithuania.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is war and we are against war,\u201d Latvian curler Polina Rozkova said. \u201cIt\u2019s not allowed (to have a) country under their own flag when their country is attacking another country. It\u2019s our opinion that we are against war. We try to listen less to the news, but of course, everything is terrible and maybe somehow it\u2019s also influencing us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Estonian curler Katlin Riidebach said she was trying to focus on the competition but felt it was important for the Estonian Paralympic Committee to make a stance and boycott the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, in here I don\u2019t want to make a political statement,\u201d Riidebach said. \u201cI know that we have decided not to go to the opening ceremony … We think it\u2019s important to say it loud that the war is not OK and people should know. And even though we don\u2019t want to say it, sports and politics are very engaged, so if athletes can say their opinion, I think we should do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahead of the Games, the IPC did not approve an item of the Ukraine uniform because it contained a map that fell within the forbidden categories of \u201cnational anthems lyrics, motivational words, public\/political messaging or slogans related to national identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The IPC said an alternative uniform was approved within 24 hours after \u201cdialogue\u201d with the Ukrainian National Paralympic Committee.<\/p>\n
Azzoni writes for the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Athletes at the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics, the first global sports event since the war in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6948,74684,5357,4005,7363,19378,48,52,51,47,50,49,80746,95422,1524,95424,78293,27469,95423,12280,2664],"class_list":["post-206784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-athlete","tag-boycott","tag-competition","tag-conflict","tag-country","tag-iran","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-milan-cortina-games","tag-milan-cortina-paralympics","tag-nation","tag-national-anthem","tag-opening-ceremony","tag-russia","tag-russian-flag","tag-ukraine","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}