Adaptive and Para skiing: classes, guides and factored times.

Who governs the Para disciplines

The FIS Statutes (Edition 2026, art. 2.3) list Para cross-country skiing (PCC), Para alpine skiing (PAL) and Para snowboarding (PSB) as FIS disciplines recognised by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). The same article lets FIS manage Para snow sports governed by other international federations where FIS holds a written mandate. FIS said in March 2026 that it took over governance of the three disciplines from the IPC in a transfer effective July 2022.

Para athletes have a place in FIS's own governance: two of the four athletes' representatives on the FIS Council must represent Para snowsports (Statutes 2026, Council composition). FIS counts Para alpine, Para cross-country and Para snowboard World Championships among its nine World Championships, and the provisional minutes of the 2026 FIS Congress mention FIS Para World Championships at Bardonecchia in 2029.

Para biathlon, the biathlon events at the Paralympics, is not one of the FIS disciplines and was not researched for this site.

Para alpine skiing

The rulebook is the FIS "International Competition Rules (ICR), Joint Regulations for Para Alpine Skiing", Edition July 2026. It covers downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super-G, parallel, combined and team events.

Categories and sport classes (art. 302.2.3)

Athletes race in their own gender within each category. Results are decided by "factored times", so athletes of different sport classes within one category can be ranked together (art. 412.4.1). An athlete not yet classified, with status "New", may race only at lower competition levels and must race in the highest class of their category (arts. 302.2.1 and 302.2.2).

Both the July 2024 classification rules and the July 2026 ICR use the AS labels for vision-impaired classes. Labels found in older secondary sources may come from other editions, so this page uses only these two FIS texts.

Guides for vision-impaired athletes (arts. 1302 and 1303)

• A guide is compulsory for every vision-impaired athlete. The guide must be of the same nationality, hold a FIS licence and have vision within the limits the rules set (art. 1302).
• Contact between guide and athlete during the race is not allowed (art. 1302).
• AS1 athletes must wear blacked-out goggles in competition (art. 1302.7).
• The guide must stay within a set number of gates of the athlete, four in slalom, three in giant slalom and two in super-G and downhill, and must pass through all the gates (arts. 1303.1 and 1303.2).

Classification

The FIS Para Alpine Skiing Classification Rules and Regulations, adopted on 1 July 2024, implement the IPC's 2015 Athlete Classification Code. Classification decides who is eligible and groups athletes so as to minimise the impact of impairment on the result (arts. 1.1 to 1.6). Eligible impairments must be permanent and come from an underlying health condition; the rules list physical impairment types, such as impaired muscle power, and vision impairment in both eyes (art. 7 and appendices).

Para snowboard

For the 2026 Paralympics, FIS listed the men's Para snowboard classes as LL1, LL2 and UL (lower limb 1, lower limb 2 and upper limb), and the women's as LL2 only, with LL1 athletes able to compete in it, as at Beijing 2022. The Para snowboard ICR itself was not read for this site.

FIS's main snowboard rulebook, ICR Book VI (June 2026, art. 2029.3), includes a snowboard cross inclusive team event (BXTI) in its event list, and the Southern Hemisphere Precisions 2026/27 refer that event to article 1411 of the Para Snowboard ICR. How the inclusive team works was not read in detail.

Para cross-country

A search summary says FIS's Para cross-country ICR is Edition July 2026, approved by the FIS Council in June 2026, and based on the cross-country ICR; the document was not opened. FIS says Para alpine and Para cross-country use three categories at the Paralympics: vision impaired, standing and sitting.

At the 2026 Paralympics

FIS ran 30 Para alpine, 20 Para cross-country and 8 Para snowboard medal events at Milano Cortina 2026, about 80% of all Paralympic medals by its count, with Para alpine at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Para cross-country in Val di Fiemme and Para snowboard at the Cortina Para Snowboard Park. Its post-Games review counted 43 nations in Para alpine, 32 in Para cross-country and 30 in Para snowboard. FIS gave two totals: before the Games, a record 54 countries; afterwards, 53 national ski associations. Results are on the 2026 Paralympics.

National bodies and adaptive teaching

• United Kingdom: GB Snowsport says it took on Para snowsports (alpine, Nordic and snowboard) in July 2018.
• Canada: Alpine Canada describes itself as the national body for alpine, para-alpine and ski cross racing.
• Instructors, UK: BASI qualifies adaptive instructors as one of its five disciplines.
• Instructors, US: PSIA-AASI publishes adaptive certification standards (dated December 2023 in the file name) and, per a search summary, offers Level I to III certification in adaptive; the document was not read, so the detail is unconfirmed.

National adaptive charities and programmes in the UK, the US, Canada and elsewhere were not researched, so none is described or recommended here. The instructor bodies are on how people learn.