Why do athletes compete for ParalympicsGB and not Team GB?

Athletes from the United Kingdom competing at the 2026 Winter Paralympics in Milan-Cortina represent ParalympicsGB and not Team GB becauee of historical and financial reasons.

Both the Olympics and the Paralympics are large international multi-sport events, held in the same city, often in the exact same sporting venues and held a few weeks apart.

They have separate histories, separate identities and separate global governing bodies in the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee.

The Paralympics is significantly younger than the Olympics, with the first Games taking place 66 years after the maiden modern summer Olympics in 1896.

The first Winter Paralympics however did not take place until 1976 in Ornskoldsvik, Sweden - 52 years after the first Winter Olympics in 1924.

The British Olympic Association and the British Paralympic Association are different organisations, although they do collaborate and often share facilities.

The BOA, now branded as Team GB, was founded in 1905 and is responsible for organising and overseeing the participation of athletes at Olympic events.

However, the BPA, now known as ParalympicsGB, was not founded until 1989. Para-athletes were previously organised by an ad hoc multi-disability committee until the 1988 Games in Seoul, when it was decided that a permanent structure was needed.

The two associations have different funding structures.

Team GB is 100% operated from commercial funding, and its function is to send British teams to IOC competitions during an Olympic cycle, including events such as the Winter Youth Olympic Games.

ParalympicsGB, meanwhile, is a charity - it gets some UK Sport funding, while the rest comes from corporate partnerships.

The two organisations' budgets are considerably different. UK Sport awarded £25.5m to Team GB for the the Milan-Cortina funding cycle, taking a squad of 53 participants to the Games.

Over the same period, ParalympicsGB received a little over £7m and are taking a smaller team of 25 athletes to Italy.

The two organisations also have different sponsors, with Team GB listing partnerships with 24 different companies on its website. ParalympicsGB meanwhile has 13 partnerships - nine of whom also sponsor Team GB.

The separation of the two organisations was put under the spotlight after the 2024 Paris Games when luxury department store Fortnum & Mason held a party for Olympians - but did not invite any Paralympians.

Paralympic sprinter Zac Shaw called this "hurtful" in a viral social media post, while Para-cyclist Archie Atkinson told BBC Sport it was "disrespectful".

Fortnum & Mason apologised for the "mistake" and retrospectively held a separate Paralympics event.

In a post on X, Shaw said it was a symptom of a "wider issue" of how disabled athletes are treated differently in sport.

In response, David Clarke, ParalympicsGB chief executive, told BBC Sport in 2024: "There's no doubt that globally the Olympic movement is still far better resourced than the Paralympic movement and following a fantastically successful Paris Paralympics we would certainly hope to see this differential continue to reduce.

"Like the vast majority of nations, ParalympicsGB and Team GB are separate organisations. We are independent but work collaboratively with each other."

Most nations have separate organisations for their Olympic and Paralympic teams, although some like Team USA are combined.

At Paris in 2024, the hosts competed as Team France in both Games.

This article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team.