Iseo, Italy – As the Paralympic Winter Games Milano-Cortina 2026 officially commenced today, Maria Luisa Garatti, a 57-year-old lawyer and marathon runner from Brescia, marked the occasion with a profound sense of personal resonance. The date, March 6th, holds a complex significance for Garatti, coinciding with both her mother’s birthday and the day in 2006 when she first experienced symptoms that would later be diagnosed as multiple sclerosis.
Garatti gained national recognition on January 17th, when she carried the Olympic flame through Iseo, Brescia, becoming a symbol of resilience, rebirth, and the right to participation. She describes the experience not as a sporting achievement, but as a representation of a deeply personal, twenty-year journey of reconstruction. “The flame I carried didn’t represent a sporting milestone, but a human story,” Garatti stated. “Twenty years of life rebuilt piece by piece. Multiple sclerosis wasn’t an event, but a continuous transformation.”
The experience of carrying the flame, she explained, was about making visible a path of adaptation and acceptance. “If today this image has a symbolic value, I hope it tells a simple thing: that fragility does not take away dignity, that illness does not erase identity, that disability does not eliminate the right to be here. Participation is not a privilege, it is a human right.”
Garatti’s perspective is informed by both her personal battle with multiple sclerosis and her professional life as an attorney. She views the Paralympics not merely as a sporting competition, but as a powerful platform for shifting societal perceptions of disability. “When I think of the Paralympics, I don’t just see a sporting competition, but a powerful platform to change the collective gaze on people with disabilities,” she said. She argues that ableism stems not only from physical barriers but as well from the language used, the images chosen, and the stories told about people with disabilities.
“For too long, people with disabilities have been invisible, or represented as extraordinary heroes, far from everyday reality. Both narratives are wrong, as they cancel the normality and complexity of a life,” Garatti explained. She believes the Paralympics can counter these narratives by showcasing athletes competing and training with dedication, without sensationalizing their conditions. “This visibility becomes real, concrete, and not symbolic.”
Garatti draws a parallel between her legal work and her experience as an athlete, emphasizing the importance of both accessibility and cultural education in combating ableism. “As a lawyer, I see the same logic: the right is not only accessibility or material protection, but also cultural education, a change in social perception.”
Looking ahead to the Games, Garatti offered a message to the Paralympic athletes: “I would like to tell them to live the Paralympics as a space of freedom, not as a test in which to embody a symbol. To remain first of all people, with their dreams, their emotions, their complexity. May they savor the joy of the race, feel the fatigue of training and the emotion of the comparison without the weight of others’ expectations. Their life goes beyond the medal.”
