3 March 2026

Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics: Team Sweden

Wheelchair curling at the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games starts this week and in the lead up, we will take a look at all the National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) competing. Next is Team Sweden.

Team Sweden will be represented by one wheelchair curling team: Team Petersson-Dahl (mixed team).

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“If you count Cortina in the box, we have more than 30 Paralympics together in the team.”

Considering themselves a steady group, Swedish vice-skip Ronny Persson details the talent and cohesion within the team. Few people know the Paralympic Games better than himself and his teammates: skip Viljo Petersson-Dahl, Sabina Johansson, Kristina Ulander and Marcus Holm.

Petersson-Dahl joined the team, which featured Persson and Ulander, nearly a decade ago and has since steadied the ship to some fantastic results over the years. A world bronze medal in 2020 was followed by Paralympic silver at Beijing 2022.

The back-end players have a contrast in personalities that complement each other well. The skip is more mild-mannered, while the vice-skip has a strong energy to his voice; but there is an overall light feel to the team.

During the interview, Persson jokes about the skip’s breakfast habits saying “He comes in, inhales the food, drinks the coffee” before leaving, leading to both chuckling. They describe the team’s humour as “ironic and a little bit childish”.

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Meet the team

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Learning from Beijing, aiming for Cortina

And that mix of humour and respect has drawn them close together, albeit they are yet to win a major title together as a team. The closest they came was at the last Paralympic Games, where they were defeated handily by a Wang Haitao’s People’s Republic of China, one of the best to ever play the game.

“I think the last final in Beijing, China outplayed us,” said Persson.

“They made their best game in the tournament, in the final, and we didn’t have anything to do.

“I think we tried our best, but we didn’t make our best game and we need to do that to compete in the final.”

Since that defeat, training has been focused on further success at the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games, with a first goal of making the play-offs, knowing that they have defeated every team in the tournament before. In fact, Sweden defeated China for that world bronze six years ago.

Training apart but growing stronger

Their training situation also brings complications, as they are spread across the country, meaning that being together is an occasion rather than a formality. Persson mentions being from the same town as Ulander, and as a result he gets to practise with her when he visits family for Christmas.

They both mention the importance of absence making the heart grow fonder and allowing space for each player to express themselves and enjoy themselves when they are together.

People’s Republic of China have played a major role in making the sport as competitive as it is today, which has raised the standard for all of them.

“We always compete to and want to win, but it’s really tough,” said Petersson-Dahl.

“There’s a lot of good nations there, but our goal is to be in the play-off. We’re there to win, but we know it’s a hard week and everybody has to have a good week.”

But talented curlers need to be able to work together and enjoy each other’s company. For Petersson-Dahl and Persson, they always share rooms at competitions, with Viljo admiring Ronny’s competitiveness and his part in developing the sport in their home nation.

Ronny added that the skip is “important as a role model”, stating he has “grown a lot to be this really calm leader that lets everybody have their room and still be individuals”.

But the endearing comments still come with some zest from Persson.

“Also, Viljo, he says, I’m competitive; Viljo is equally competitive because when he started to be a skip, he wouldn’t be an ordinary skip, so, he watched every curling game there is available on internet,” said Persson.

“Every game, most of the games, he watched more than once to learn the tactics about it. That is competitive.”

Petersson-Dahl nods and laughs, stating that he is a “bit of a nerd”.

Chasing gold without fear of failure

The Paralympic Winter Games will provide an opportunity for them to indulge in the history of Cortina d’Ampezzo, home of the 1956 Olympic Winter Games too, looking to take in the picturesque views in the mountains and spend some time exploring their surroundings on a rare day off.

For the competition itself, Persson says it would feel “arrogant” to say they were just going for gold, acknowledging the hard work and ambitions of all players at the tournament, going as far to say he has never been so clear going into a Games before.

“I have been most relaxed ever in front of a Paralympics,” said Persson.

“And hopefully that’s because I know roughly what’s going on. So I haven’t been so stressed about it.

“Other Paralympics has been like, ‘oh, now finally it’s Paralympics’ and you get all worked up, but I think the experience now, I try to think of things that I can’t do anything about, like weather or let’s say transportation in Cortina, if that could be a problem, I don’t think about it so much.

“It is what it is, and I think that comes with the experience that we’ve been around the block for quite some time now.”

“You don’t get bore, I mean, it’s the Paralympics,” added Petersson-Dahl.

“You feel the pressure and you’re dealing with the experience like a couple of weeks before. I’m going to handle the pressure, both externally and from myself, but that’s how I do it. Other competitions are just competitions, but Paralympics is, yeah, it’s the biggest.”

The hunger for gold is still there, hoping to right the wrongs of four years ago, but there is comfort in any result, as long as they do themselves proud.

“I think there’s two ways of defining success, but you can make your best tournament, and you can still end up second or third, I think,” said Petersson-Dahl.

“But what else can you do if you have that feeling as a team when you leave? We make our best tournament, we end up third – I think you have to be satisfied anyway, in some sense because the competition is really, really tough. But if we don’t perform and end up third or fourth, we’re not satisfied.”

“It’s so dangerous to just focus on the gold, for everything except the gold is a failure if you look at it that way,” added Persson, who admits “one step higher would be nice”.

“I have promised myself that if I can look in the mirror after Cortina and say to myself, ‘I did everything I could with the material in my head, in my body, with my gears’.

“If I did everything I could possibly do with that, and I end up third or fourth or whatever, then I can’t be punishing myself when I get home.”

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Team Sweden Stats

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