Who is Oksana Masters? American Paralympic rower and cross-country skier Oksana Masters has astounded everyone by winning her second gold medal of the Tokyo Paralympics. Her first gold medal came when she won the women’s time trial H4-5 on 31st August, 2021. She is expecting her third gold medal in the relay event scheduled for 2 September, 2021. Masters now has 10 medals overall in both summer and winter events including four gold.
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Here's what you need to know about Oksana Masters
The 32-year-old Paralympian is only the fourth woman to win gold at both the Summer and Winter Paralympics.
She has won 10 medals across 5 Paralympics in 4 events - cycling, Nordic skiing, biathlon and rowing.
She recently got a tumor removed from her femur in May.
She was born in Chernobyl in Ukraine with several birth defects. She believes that her birth defects stem from the fact that she took birth on the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident.
32-year-old Oksana Masters is one of the most decorated Paralympians in history, with 10 medals across multiple events — this is her inspiring story
She lived at a Ukrainian orphanage until age 7 where her birth parents abandoned her. On turning 7, she was adopted by an unmarried American speech therapy professor. Masters said that her mother kept pushing her to pursue adaptive sports. "Seeing my mom smile is everything to me in the world", she said. She got her left leg amputated near the knee when she was nine-years-old. Five years later, she got her right leg amputated at the same spot
She kickstarted her Paralympic career in 2012 in London and won a bronze medal in rowing. She has come a long way since then, she won two gold medals in skiing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Paralympics and added two more silver medals and a bronze in Pyeongchang. In Sochi in 2014, she won a silver and a bronze.
“I’ve always been about seeing is believing, and when you can see something, you can be it and achieve it.”, she had said in an interview.
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