Team USA finished second in the overall Paralympics medal count, after 10 days of competition in which American athletes made dazzling debuts, defended titles and cemented legacies.
One of the many made-for-TV moments came just hours before the closing ceremony on Sunday, when the U.S. sled hockey team defeated rival Canada to claim its record fifth gold medal in a row.
"You don't ever start out and try to be the only five-time gold medalist in the sport," said captain Josh Pauls after personally achieving that very feat. "But to be with these guys, to lead them and kind of pass on that tradition, it's the ultimate honor."
The day — and the Games — ended with the closing ceremony in Cortina d'Ampezzo, featuring performances, speeches and the extinguishing of the Paralympic flame. American skiers Kendall Gretsch and Andrew Kurka, who are both leaving Italy with new medals, carried the flag for Team USA.
"I've been involved in four Games and have only been able to go to two closing ceremonies: in PyeongChang, where I won my gold and silver, and this year, where I won my bronze," said Kurka, who medaled in men's super-G. "It's been a career filled with ups and downs, but even the small victories count for me."
At the ceremony, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons declared the Games — the 50th anniversary of the Winter Paralympics — officially over, and a success: "The biggest and most beautiful Winter Paralympics with more athletes, more nations, more women and more global broadcast and digital coverage than ever before."
A record 611 athletes from 55 countries competed in 79 medal events across six sports.
China topped the medal count for the second Winter Games in a row, with 44 total medals (15 gold), followed by the U.S. with 24 total medals, including 13 gold. The U.S. improved on its fifth-place standing from 2022. This is the same number of gold medals it won in 2018, in what officials are calling its "strongest gold-medal showing in the last 20 years."
A total of 28 American Paralympians and two guides reached the podium this year. Six of them won medals for the first time, and six of them earned multiple medals, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).
In third place — both overall and in gold medals — was Russia, which was allowed to participate under its own flag for the first time since 2014 despite its ongoing war in Ukraine. Ukrainian athletes boycotted both the opening and closing ceremonies in protest.
But even in a moment of intense geopolitical upheaval, amid conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, the IPC's Parsons said the Paralympics offered "proof that sport can unite us through respect, fairness and human achievement."
"Paralympians, you rose above pressure, expectation and global tension to keep the focus where it belongs: on you and your sport," he said. "You expanded the imagination of the world. You have shown that excellence is universal and that determination knows no boundaries."
Parsons passed the proverbial torch to the next Winter Paralympics host: the French Alps for 2030. Those will follow the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Los Angeles.
Team USA highlights
On the ice:
The U.S. sled hockey team got off to a strong start in an early-round match against Italy, when it beat the host nation 14-1 — the largest margin of victory in the sport's U.S. history.
It stayed dominant, outscoring opponents 46-6 throughout the tournament before becoming the first Paralympic or Olympic team to win five consecutive winter gold medals.
"You are going to enjoy something like this, for sure," Coach David Hoff said afterward. "But I don't know if it's just the wins. It's so much more than that. They just love playing together."
Team USA beat Canada 6-2 on Sunday, thanks to a hat trick from Jack Wallace — who was named "best defender" of the tournament — and goals by Kayden Beasley, Brody Roybal and four-time Paralympian Declan Farmer.
Farmer, the top scorer and official MVP of these Games, scored 15 goals and 26 points throughout the tournament to become the all-time leading scorer in Paralympic sled hockey history at just 28 years old. But he was quick to share the credit with his teammates.
"A lot of the guys stepped up and had their best games of the tournament, and we just carried each other," said Farmer. "I'm just so happy for the guys, we earned it together."
You're forgiven if you have deja vu from last month: This win makes the U.S. the first country to sweep all three Olympic and Paralympic hockey tournaments in one year.
Team USA also made history in wheelchair curling, with Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer finishing fourth in the brand-new mixed doubles event. That's the United States' best-ever Paralympic finish in the sport.
"In the two years we've been together, we've shown the world what we're capable of doing and we're going to go home, take some time off, relax, re-group and come back even better next year," said Emt, the most decorated Paralympic curler in U.S. history.
In Para Nordic Skiing (cross country and biathlon):
Eight-time, dual-season Paralympian Oksana Masters, the most decorated Winter Paralympian in U.S. history, is leaving Italy with four new gold medals and a bronze in biathlon and cross-country skiing events, bringing her career total to 24 medals.
That's despite a concussion, infection and injury that almost kept her from competing in the first place.
"I think that is what makes it so special, because nothing is guaranteed," Masters told NPR on Saturday. "A win's not guaranteed, and the podium's not guaranteed, and so that's been a really great motivator for this whole … year so far."
Four-time Paralympian Jake Adicoff, with guides Reid Goble and Peter Wolter, won four gold medals in four visually impaired skiing events to set a new record for the most Para cross-country golds won by a Team USA athlete in a single Games.
"It's incredibly scary to put a high goal out to the public," the 30-year-old said. "I was doubting it so much this week, I didn't know what was going to happen, but the races came together and I'm just overjoyed."
One of those was the mixed 4x2.5km relay, where the all-star team of Adicoff, Masters, Josh Sweeney and Sydney Peterson came from behind in the final leg to defend the U.S. title.
Peterson, competing in her second Paralympics, won four medals — three of them gold — this time around.
And Kendall Gretsch, closing ceremony flag-bearer, won four medals at her third Winter Paralympics (and fifth total): one gold, one silver and two bronze. That brings her total medal count to 11 across Summer and Winter Games.
In Alpine skiing:
Andrew Kurka won bronze in the men's super-G sitting, adding to his silver and gold from 2018.
"I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to have a great career. Gold, silver, and bronze, happy to be done," said Kurka, who wrote on Instagram after the closing ceremony that he is stepping back from ski racing to deal with injuries.
In 2022, he competed with a broken nose, thumb and humerus bone, finishing fourth in the sitting downhill event before withdrawing from the rest of competition. Kurka said in Italy that he's broken over 20 bones in his career.
"When it comes to it, losing is nothing compared to the pain of failure," he said after winning bronze. "And when it comes down to today, I was just happy to get across that finish line without any injuries and in a relatively quick time. Usually, if I cross the finish line, it's pretty fast."
Meanwhile, Patrick Halgren won silver in the men's super-G standing event — the first for Team USA since 1998.
The 33-year-old wasn't necessarily a favorite for the podium, having placed 26th and 24th at his events in the Beijing Paralympics. But Halgren said he felt the presence of his late twin brother Sven — his source of encouragement to try para Alpine skiing — who died in a motorcycle accident in 2016. Halgren himself lost most of his left leg, and nearly his life, in a motorcycle accident three years earlier.
Halgren, who wowed the internet with his winning performance and rock-star persona, dedicated his win to Sven and called it the "best day of my life until tomorrow."
"You celebrate the victories the same as the defeats," he added. "I've been blessed to have to develop my character over the last 11 years, losing my leg, and could either roll over and die, or I could become the greatest Patrick Halgren on Earth, and that's what you're seeing."
In snowboarding:
Three-time Paralympian Brenna Huckaby leaves Italy as the most decorated Paralympic snowboarder in history.
She won bronze in the women's banked slalom event — which she dominated in 2022 — to bring her career total to five medals. That came days after she finished sixth in the snowboard cross event, which she still saw as a win.
"I'm here representing a very small portion of people who want to see themselves represented," Huckaby said. "They want to know that if they lose their leg above the knee, life does not end. I accomplished that here simply by being. So I'm happy."
First-time Paralympian Kate Delson medaled in both of those events, winning gold in the banked slalom and silver in snowboard cross.
"I was just stoked to be here, I think it's such a fun course," Delson said after. "I got to get a medal with my teammate, [Huckaby], one of my best friends in the world, that's unreal."
On the men's side, Noah Elliott won gold in the banked slalom, a repeat of 2018, and silver in snowboard cross to double his career medal count.
And Mike Schultz earned his fourth career medal — bronze in banked slalom — at the last race of his third and final Paralympics.
"To finish my last run and bring home a bronze medal, that's storybook stuff there," Schultz said in an emotional Instagram video after watching a compilation of congratulatory messages from his U.S. snowboarding teammates, whom he called his family.
All the while, the 44-year-old outfitted many para athletes — including some who beat him — with high-performance prosthetics, a business he has run for over a decade, which he plans to pursue in retirement.
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