The idea of winter sports practicing in Ukraine appeared in 1993 while disabled sport system establishment. For the first time representatives of the Ukrainian National Committee of Sports for the Disabled became acquainted with winter sports, their specificity, the International Paralympics community, which already had experience in this field, in 1994 at the Winter Paralympics in Lillehammer.

Debut of Ukraine in the winter sports was made at the VII Winter Paralympics in 1998 in Nagano (Japan). At that time our National Paralympic team included Svitlana Tryfonova (Kiev region), Olena Akopian (Dnipropetrovsk region), Tamara Kulinich (Dnipropetrovsk region), Iryna Kyrychenko (Dnipropetrovsk region), Olexandr Vasyutynskyi (Mykolaiv region) and Vitaliy Lukyanenko (Sumy region). These athletes were afire with sport passion and decided to try themselves in ski racing, having already some experience in Summer Paralympic sports. The idea worked and the result was 3 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze medals.

VIII Paralympic Games in 2002 took place in Salt Lake City (USA) and continued progressive Ukrainian winter traditions - the National Paralympic Team won 12 medals among which 6 silver and 6 bronze. At that time the professional level of the team raised significantly and young athletes Olena Iurkovska (Kiev region), Iurii Kostiuk (Volyn region) and Vladyslav Morozov (Kharkiv region) showed very high results.

The performance of Ukrainian athletes at the IX Winter Paralympics 2006 in Turin (Italy) was a real triumph when our winter sports team won the third place in the world by number of gold medals and second by the total number of medals. It was a great achievement of the National team of Ukraine - 25 medals among which 7 gold, 9 silver and 9 bronze ones. Male and female team performance in the relay was bright and exciting - two bronze team medals for our national team in this event can be compared to the highest medals as to their value. Turin was the first Games for Lyudmyla Pavlenko (Kharkiv region), Iuliia Batenkova (Volyn region), Sergiy Khyzhnyak (Kharkiv region), and Tetyana Smirnova (Kharkiv region).

For the last four years the team became even stronger. The National Winter Sports Paralympic Team of 2010 includes world well known Ukrainian Paralympians: Olena Iurkovska, Lyudmyla Pavlenko, Svitlana Tryfonova, Iuliia Batenkova, Iurii Kostiuk, Vitaliy Lukyanenko, Oleg Munts, Sergiy Khyzhnyak. Young athletes - winners of World Cups, World Championships, top ranking skiers – joined famous leaders of the paralympic sports, thus Ukrainian team is renewed for 60%. Although it is quite difficult to predict the future of these debut athletes, it’s important to highlight performance of Oleksandra Kononova, Tetyana Tymoshchenko and Grygorii Vovchynskyi.

Thus Ukraine will be presented at the X Winter Paralympic Games by the team of 26 athletes, among them 19 paralympians and 7 guides. The team comprises 14 athletes with locomotor disabilities and 5 with visual impairments, there are 8 female and 11 male athletes. The average age of the team members is 27.6 years. The most experienced athletes – Svitlana Tryfonova and Oleg Munts - are 43 years old; the youngest athletes of the team - Oleksandra Kononova and Oksana Shyshkova – are 18 years old.

One of the unique characteristics of the National Paralympic Team of Ukraine is its wide regional representation: members of the team represent 10 Ukrainian regions (Kyiv region, Kyiv city, Volyn, Kirovograd, Chernigiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Lviv and Sumy regions).

It is the first time in Ukraine’s history of participation in Winter Paralympic Games that our athletes will compete in three out of five sports of Paralympics2010: Cross-Country, Biathlon and Alpine Skiing (for the first time). Paralympic athletes will participate in two events in Biathlon (long and short distance); in three events in Cross-Country Skiing (short distance freestyle, middle and long distance classic style), in relay (women 3 x 2,5 km, men 1 x 4 km and 2 x 5 km), as well as one athlete will make a debut in Alpine Skiing in two events (slalom and giant slalom).

A lot of people are involved in trainings and preparations of athletes for the competitions at Winter Paralympic Games 2010, namely “Honoured coaches of Ukraine” in Biathlon and Cross-Country Skiing Valeriy Kazakov, Volodymyr Storozhok and Mykola Vorchak, alongside with guides for visual impaired athletes Volodymyr Ivanov, Borys Babar, Vitaliy Kazakov, Dmytro Artomin and Sergiy Kucheryavyy and Alpine Skiing coach Nataliya Lobas, technical and administrative staff.

The National Paralympic delegation of Ukraine includes 47 people. Head of the delegation is President of Ukrainian National Sports Committee for the Disabled - Valeriy Sushkevych.