The veteran Japanese skier Taiki Morii will compete again at the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games, two decades after winning his first medal at Torino 2006, the last time Italy hosted the event. At 45, the experienced sit-skier approaches what could be the final major chapter of a career that began more than twenty years ago and now seeks to close the circle where his Paralympic story truly began. “Milano Cortina 2026 holds a special place in my heart,” he explains. “Everything started in Italy, and I’m thinking about finishing it in Italy. I want a happy ending.”

For Morii, skiing has never been just about competition. His relationship with the sit-ski — a chair mounted on a single ski and controlled with outriggers for balance and turning — goes far beyond sporting equipment. “When I’m on my sit-ski, that’s when I feel the most free,” he says. “It’s the moment when I stop feeling my disability entirely.” That feeling has sustained a career spanning more than two decades at the top level of Para alpine skiing, a discipline in which he has won seven Paralympic medals. “The equipment is honest. It only does exactly what you tell it to do. It won’t do anything different from your instructions.”

Learning to laugh again through sport

Morii’s life changed completely before he turned 17, when he suffered a spinal cord injury in a motorcycle accident. During his recovery in hospital, he watched the Nagano 1998 Paralympic Winter Games on television. Those images transformed the way he saw his future. “I watched the Nagano Paralympics from my hospital room and thought, ‘This is something for me,’” he recalls. “At that time I was in despair. It was right after my injury and I didn’t imagine I could ever laugh again.”

What surprised him most was not the racing itself, but the expressions on the athletes’ faces. “I saw athletes with spinal cord injuries like mine smiling and laughing. They were smiling so much you could see the back of their teeth,” he says. That moment sparked an idea that would reshape his life. “I thought I would be able to laugh again if I started doing sport. From the hospital bed I decided I would take up sit-skiing.”

From a hospital room to a “happy ending” in Italy

Four years after discovering the sport, Morii made his Paralympic debut at the Salt Lake City 2002 Paralympic Winter Games. He arrived confident, convinced he could compete with the best, but the experience quickly turned into a lesson. “At my first Paralympics I couldn’t even tell left from right,” he admits candidly. “I was too confident. I thought that if I was one of the best in Japan, I would do well, but I ended up facing reality.”

That moment marked the beginning of his real development as an athlete. Four years later, at Torino 2006, he reached his first Paralympic podium with a silver medal in giant slalom. Since then he has collected seven medals at the Paralympic Winter Games, including two bronze medals at Beijing 2022, often finishing ahead of rivals many years younger. Yet one piece is still missing from his collection. “I’ve never won a Paralympic gold,” he admits. “My dream in alpine skiing is to win gold. I want to bring home a medal of the most beautiful colour.”

A retirement that isn’t really a retirement

Despite his sporting longevity, Morii insists his formula is simple. “You just need to loosen a few screws in your brain,” he jokes. Then he laughs and corrects himself: “No, I’m kidding. It’s simple — the basics are the most important.” For him, the key lies in technical precision and constant repetition of the fundamentals. “If you have the basic technique, you can always stick to a plan and there will be no surprises.”

When he speaks about the future, Morii avoids the word retirement. What he imagines instead is a transition. “I want to stop competing in top-tier competitions like the Paralympics or World Cups, but continue racing in smaller competitions because I love racing,” he explains. He does not see himself becoming a coach either. “I’m not interested in becoming a coach. I’d rather young athletes learn by skiing with me or feel something when they see me compete.”

He even leaves the door open to continuing beyond Milano Cortina 2026. “I’ve told people I’ll compete in 2030 if nobody is faster than me,” he says with a smile. “I’ll keep racing as long as my body moves.” In reality, he hopes for the opposite. “I want the younger generation to be so fast that returning to the Paralympics won’t even cross my mind.”

For Morii, legacy is not measured only in medals. It is also visible in the evolution of the Paralympic Movement he has witnessed throughout his career. “I think alpine skiing made me who I am today,” he says. “I started at a time when people still debated whether the Paralympics were rehabilitation or elite sport. Now in Japan they are seen as top-level competition, and I’m happy I was able to witness that change as an athlete.”