An ex-Team GB Paralympian has slammed the ruling allowing Russian athletes to compete under their own flag at the 2026 Milan Cortina Paralympic Games.

This will make it the first time since the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, that Russia and Belarus will be able to do so.

Talan Skeels-Piggins, who competed for Great Britain at the 2010 Winter Paralympics, said: “I thought it was the wrong move by the IPC to allow the athletes to compete under their national flag. They could have still attended and competed as AIN.”

Banned initially in 2017 in the wake of the state-sponsored doping program, Russian athletes competed through the ‘Russian Olympic Committee’ (ROC).

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the following annexation by President Vladimir Putin, further besmirched their reputation worldwide.

Since the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, they have competed under a neutral flag, referred to as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs), to allow their countrymen and women to compete.

The decision by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to fly their flags once again and play their national anthems has thus been under great scrutiny.

The President of the IPC, Andrew Parsons, announced the decision on Wednesday, 18th February. It was confirmed that six Russian and four Belarusian athletes will take part in the Games.

Parsons told a press conference in Milan on Monday: “This decision cannot be overturned by the board or by myself.”

Delegations from Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland have vowed to boycott the official Opening Ceremony of the 2026 Winter Paralympics because of Russia and Belarus’s participation.

Is it fair that Paralympians from Ukraine may have to compete alongside individuals who have returned from war against their nation, or sacrifice their own hard work for the sake of their security at the Games?

Ex-British Paralympian Talan Skeels-Piggins, aged 55, certainly does not believe so.

“It could have been that a number of Ukrainian athletes, who are also frontline soldiers that have been injured, have used sport as a recovery vessel,” said Skeels-Piggins.

“They could end up facing each other, you know, and it’s just not a good message to send out.”

As Skeels-Piggins suggests, it has been questioned why the IPC have decided to make such a ruling, when Russian Paralympians could have still competed under AIN.

The Olympics and Paralympics have a long history of serving as a global stage for political protest.

45 countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games over USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan, with a Soviet-led coalition of nations responding by snubbing the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Skeels-Piggins says the decision to welcome back the Russians is not the first questionable one during these Winter Games.

“We had the Ukrainian skeleton slider [Vladyslav Heraskevych] that was banned because of his helmet which was a tribute to the lives of people that were lost and wasn’t a political statement.

Yet, you’re now allowing Russians and Belarus to compete under the national flag.”

Skeels-Piggins understands how tough a journey it can be for athletes simply to make it to the Paralympic stage.

He was paralysed from the chest down following a motorcycle accident in March 2003, which shattered his spine and broke his neck.

On top of the fight to compete physically after his accident, Talan lost his brother to suicide in 2008.

“I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t do anything. And so, my world apart for the next year.”

Talan had to perform in December of 2009 in Pitztal, Austria, to earn his place at Vancouver, Canada, in 2010, which he did.

“For me to go was just such a relief. Mentally, I was just absolutely over the moon to be there.

I was both honoured and humbled to be there at the same time, it was a vindication of all the hardship that I’d been through, all of the hard work, the commitment to the training.”

He competed in the men’s slalom, giant slalom and super-G in the Vancouver Paralympics, with a best finish of 15th in the giant slalom.

“I’d lost my marriage because my wife had told me that I needed to stop playing – and skiing – that I was never going to go to the Paralympics, and [that] I had to get real job. And so, she left me.

It was an incredibly tough build up to going to the games,” said Talan.

Skeels-Piggins’ story is certainly not the same as everyone else’s, and shows the grit and determination required to achieve the Paralympic dream.

“It was such an incredible, positive experience on my life to be there. To share the games with others that had shown the same level of commitment, the same level of determination, [and] the same level of excellence to get there.”

The Paralympic Games has been a celebration of unity, resilience and talent since its inception in 1960.

Concern is growing that spirit of the games will be overshadowed by this ruling by the IPC, starting on March 6th when the opening ceremony in Verona gets under way.