TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's biggest Winter Paralympic delegation in decades will take part in the Milan Cortina Games from Friday, with competitors in multiple events tipped to bring home medals.

The Winter Paralympics, which run through March 15, are Italy's first since Torino 2006 and mark the 50th anniversary of the games. More than 600 athletes are expected to compete in 79 events in six sports.

Japan is fielding 44 athletes across all six sports, its largest overseas delegation to a Winter Paralympics, surpassed only by the 70 at the 1998 Nagano Games.

Japan took home seven medals from the previous Winter Paralympics, in Beijing in 2022, while its best performance was 41 medals in Nagano.

Prospects include wheelchair curling doubles pair Aki Ogawa, 50, and Yoji Nakajima, 61, who are aiming to take gold when the event makes its Paralympic debut. Ogawa and Nakajima, who won last year's world championships, are the first Japanese wheelchair curlers at a Paralympics since 2010.

At the Para ice hockey in Milan, Japan is back for the first time in eight years with a team of newcomers and veterans including the first woman to represent the country in Akari Fukunishi, 35. The team's best performance came in 2010, taking silver as runners-up to the United States.

In Para cross-country skiing, Beijing gold medalist Taiki Kawayoke will aim to win the 10-kilometer classical event after overcoming recent struggles and getting back on track.

His teammate, the 45-year-old gold medalist Yoshihiro Nitta, will also look to reclaim past glories in his Japanese Paralympic record eighth consecutive games.

In Para alpine skiing, hopes are high that 28-year-old Momoka Muraoka, Japan's pre-eminent sit skier, who won four medals including three golds in Beijing and five medals at the Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games, can contend despite not competing in events in the run-up to the games after breaking her collarbone in November.

If successful, she could become the country's most decorated winter Paralympian, a title currently held by Kuniko Obinata, the 10-time Para alpine skiing medalist heading this year's team.

Muraoka's idol, the seven-time medalist and veteran sit-skier Taiki Morii, 45, will also compete at his seventh consecutive Paralympic Games as he looks to snag the gold medal that has long eluded him.

In snowboarding, team flagbearer Junta Kosuda, 35, is seen as a top prospect to take home a medal after winning gold in the men's banked slalom at the 2025 world championships. His performance could break a drought for Japan's boarders who failed to get to the podium in 2022.

Eri Sakashita, 33, is also set to make history as she becomes the first woman to represent Japan at the Paralympics in snowboarding.