IPC's digital channels enjoy record breaking results for Milano Cortina 2026
Nearly 0.65 billion video views across the @Paralympics digital channels during 12 days of sporting competition 31 Mar 2026
The International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) digital channels enjoyed record breaking results during the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games with the performance of some channels surpassing not just the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games but the whole year of 2024.
Across all @Paralympics channels, there were 648 million video views during 12 days of sporting competition, a staggering 3,144 percent increase on the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games. The number of video views is also more than two times the 305 million views across IPC channels during the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games which featured more sports and more days of competition.
Mike Peters PLY, IPC Chief Executive Officer, said: “Milano Cortina 2026 was by some distance our most successful Paralympic Winter Games to date for digital content and engagement with both pre-Games and Games-time content achieving record numbers.
“For the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games to outperform the record-breaking Paris 2024 Paralympic Games across some social media channels underlines the growing global interest in Paralympic sport among younger audiences, shows the value of working closely with the leading social media platforms, and the quality of talent within the IPC Content Team.
“Our pre-Games strategy focussed on educating audiences about the six Paralympic winter sports and the leading Para athletes in each sport. During the Games we switched to highlighting the best sporting moments and providing audiences with athlete and behind-the-scenes related content.
“Research from previous Paralympic Games has shown that witnessing Paralympic sport performances triggers massive shifts in attitudes and perceptions of viewers towards persons with disabilities. I am certain these record-breaking figures from Milano Cortina 2026 will have had a similar transformational impact.”
YouTube leads the way
Working closely with YouTube, between the first day of competition on 4 March and the Closing Ceremony on 15 March 2026, there were 493.4 million videos views on the @Paralympics channel, with YouTube Shorts proving extremely popular. During this time, more than one million hours of content was consumed by viewers via the channel.
In terms of video views, the numbers recorded during Milano Cortina 2026 were 860 per cent higher than for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and 97.6 per cent greater than the whole year 2024.
The most popular YouTube short, involving a stunning shot by Canadian wheelchair curler Mark Ideson was viewed 46 million times.
With regards to pre-Games content, there were 1.2 million video views of content related to Milano Cortina 2026. This is 680 per cent more than the 154,000 video views during a same pre-Games period for Beijing 2022. This content included the animated Allianz Sport Explainer films which serve as guides to each of the six Paralympic Winter sports; athlete profiles, and highlights from previous Games.
Meta contributes 0.3 billion content views
Across Meta channels, there was more than 303 million impressions of content across @Paralympic channels.
On Facebook there were 169 million impressions of content on the @Paralympics page, including 44 million video views. Instagram accounted for more than 134 million impressions of content on the @Paralympics channel, with video content receiving more than 59 million views.
TikTok
On TikTok, the @Paralympics channel recorded 31.4 million video views and 1.2 million engagements. TikTok is the @Paralympics most popular channel with a regular audience of 4.7 million followers.
Douyin and Weibo
Across the Chinese social media channels of Douyin and Weibo there were nearly 21 million video views with one post – a video from the China’s victory over Japan in wheelchair curling (mixed team or mixed doubles) attracting 9.65 million views. The majority of the most popular posts featured wheelchair curling as China won gold in the inaugural mixed doubles medal event and silver in the mixed team event.
Overall audience growth
Across all the social channels, the number of followers and subscribers to the IPC’s @Paralympic social channels increased, with the number of YouTube subscribers growing by over 250,000. The IPC now has more than 10.2 million followers and subscribers across its @Paralympics network of channels.
Website visitors
During the Games there were more than 3 million visitors to paralympic.org, the IPC’s official website, a growth of 43 per cent compared to the 2.1 million visitors during Beijing 2022.
