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.
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.
