Oksana Masters was born Oksana Alexandrovna Bondarchuk almost 33 years ago in Ukraine. Three years after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded, she was scarred by the nuclear disaster as a baby.
She was born with a laundry list of physical defects: fused fingers, no thumbs, 6 toes on each foot, and deformed legs.
Young Oksana spent her early years in orphanages until she was adopted at the age of 7 by Gay Masters, a single woman who was a professor at several American universities.
After a few surgical procedures, doctors were able to position her fingers so that she could have a thumb function, although there was no other option than to amputate both legs above the knees.
Masters sought and found a way out in the sport and has since emerged as one of the figureheads of the Paralympic sport, at both the Summer and Winter Games.
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In London 2012, she won bronze in para-rowing, last year she won 2x gold in para-cycling in Tokyo. Her record at the Winter Games is even more impressive, with a total of 10 medals, 3 of which were gold.
In Beijing she already won gold and silver in the biathlon this year and also silver in cross-country skiing. What makes it even tougher is that she was operated on for a tumor in her leg in preparation for these Winter Games.
During the Games, Masters, who still has a few medals in mind, is also thinking about her homeland, where a fierce war is raging after the Russian invasion. “I’ve always been proud to be Ukrainian,” she wrote on Instagram. “More than ever before, I feel proud when I see the Ukrainian flag.”
“This is for Team Ukraine and for the Ukrainian people,” she said after her gold medal in the biathlon. She wore a yellow-blue bracelet on her wrists. The medals are on the American counter, but Masters’ thoughts are clearly with Ukraine.
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