Oksana Masters: Embracing Power Through Sports

Oksana Masters has earned 17 Paralympic medals, competing in multiple disciplines across four Summer and Winter Games. Her achievements surpass those of many athletes. Still, the Team USA athlete is driven by numerous motivations as she approaches the Paralympic Games. One goal is to defend her two para-cycling gold medals from Tokyo.

For Masters, sport initiated a profound "journey of self-discovery and love." Born in Ukraine, she faced significant birth defects attributed to the Chernobyl disaster. These included six toes, webbed fingers, no thumbs, and legs lacking weight-bearing bones. Her early years were spent in orphanages until her American mother, Gay Masters, adopted her.

After moving to the United States, Masters had her legs amputated at the ages of nine and fourteen. Since her first Paralympic medal in rowing at the London 2012 Games, she amassed a total of 17 medals. Out of these, seven are gold, spanning six editions of the Games in rowing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, and cycling. Engaging in various sports empowered her to accept herself.

"This journey allowed me to love myself," she explained. Accepting her body as powerful and strong was gradual, not instantaneous. "Sports helped me realize it’s okay to take my legs off in front of others and still feel powerful." Masters wants others to understand her feelings and not let societal discomfort shape her identity.

Resilience complements her talent. A back injury ended her rowing career after the London Paralympics, but she shifted to cross-country skiing. In the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, she won a silver and a bronze. Remarkably, she won two gold medals in Tokyo less than a year after recovering from leg surgery.

"I arrived in America with many scars. I allowed those experiences to define me. However, they do not define who I am," she stated. "What truly counts is how you choose to move forward and the experiences you create. Scars symbolize strength and resilience, whether earned from adventure or not."

This year, Masters is set to compete in para cycling races. At 35, the athlete seeks that perfect race, where the final result matters less than the experience itself. "Many athletes strive for that perfection. To me, it’s not just a gold medal that signifies such a race."

Earlier, SSP wrote that pregnant para-archer Jodie Grinham secured historic bronze in Paris.