MASTERS Oksana

Classification
H5 (uci.org, 20 Aug 2021)

Type of Impairment
Limb deficiency (Athlete, 29 Mar 2018)

Origin of Impairment
Congenital (Athlete, 29 Mar 2018)

Impairment Details
She was born with tibial hemimelia, which meant her legs were different lengths and did not have shinbones. She also had five webbed fingers without a thumb, six toes on each foot and only one kidney. Both of her legs were amputated above the knee, one at age nine and the other at age 14. (uoflphysicians.com, 06 Mar 2014; espn.go.com, 11 Jul 2012)

General
UKRAINE TO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
She was born in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, located just a few hours from Chernobyl, the scene of a nuclear accident in 1986. Her birth mother's exposure to radiation from living nearby is believed to have been a factor in Masters' impairment. She was abandoned at an orphanage after she was born, and was adopted by Gay Masters at age seven and taken to the United States of America. "Where I was from, they had radiation leaks. A cop [policeman] in my village would go around and say, 'Lock up,' and you boarded your windows and doors and didn't come out for a day or two to let the radiation die down. I was in a very poor orphanage so there wasn't much food. There was never enough to satisfy the hunger. I don't remember much because many memories are blocked out. I always knew that I would have a mother, I just had to wait." (uatoday.tv, 30 Oct 2015; uoflphysicians.com, 06 Mar 2014; espn.go.com, 11 Jul 2012)

SCARS AND TATTOOS
She spent over seven years in the orphanage system in Ukraine as a child, where she said she was subjected to physical abuse that left her with numerous scars. "A scar is a story that happens to you. You don't own a scar, you survive a scar. I want to own my story. That's something I've begun to discover as I've grown older, this desire I have to reclaim my body, to reclaim my life as a story that only I get to tell. To say the hard part out loud, [that] I was abused. To define it, not let it define me. Over the course of my adulthood, that desire has manifested itself in all types of ways. It has manifested itself in a love of tattoos. Tattoos, unlike scars, you get to choose. And each tattoo I have is full of so many of my own choices. Each of them represents such an important part of me. When I get a new tattoo, it's like me saying, 'I want my story told in this colour, and this size, in this location, that looks like this, and reminds me of this, and this, and this'. So, where my actual scars might reflect these moments of powerlessness, my new scars, the way I choose to mark my body up with tattoos, I feel this deep purpose in it. I feel the most amazing sense of self." (theplayerstribune.com, 29 Dec 2020)

TWO GAMES IN SIX MONTHS
She is aiming to compete in cycling at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and in Nordic skiing at the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing. "I think what mentally drives me [to do more than one sport] is I wasn't satisfied with how I left the sport of rowing. It wasn't my choice to walk away from it. My body failed me at that sport. I wasn't able to maintain a quality of life to pursue that sport more. You would think cross-country skiing and cycling cross over to each other really well, but it's actually the opposite. They are two separate motions. Cycling is all pushing and cross-country skiing is all about pulling. I have to de-train as we come off peak ski fitness and get into cycling shape. It's wild to see how my body physically changes. My back muscles and my lats and my triceps are so defined for skiing. When I start cycling, my back muscles and my lats disappear, and my shoulders and my chest and my biceps start to grow. It's just constantly adapting." (si.com, 23 May 2021; teamusa.org, 21 May 2021)

ROLE MODEL
She struggled with self-confidence as a child and believes children with an impairment need more role models. "It's the end of the world if you're having a bad hair day or you have a pimple on your face for school picture day, let alone if you have prosthetic legs and hands that are hard to cover up. Then society has put this label on you, even though you don't see yourself as 'disabled'. That's something that's put on you. I don't want the next generation of young girls and kids to grow up not having that person to look up to and want to aspire to. Every kid had a picture of Michael Jordan on their wall. Why can't it be a normal thing for that to be someone who has had an accident or was bo

She became the first athlete representing the United States of America to win a gold medal in Para biathlon at the world championships when she placed first in the 6km sprint at the 2017 edition in Finsterau, Germany. (SportsDeskOnline, 05 Dec 2018; skitrax.com, 12 Feb 2017)