The Struggle Story of Oksana Masters: From an Orphanage to a Paralympic Legend

SadaNews - American champion Oksana Masters has continued to write one of the most inspiring stories in sports, after winning the gold medal in the sprint event of the sitting biathlon at the 2026 Winter Paralympic Games, raising her total to 20 Paralympic medals, including 10 golds.

The 36-year-old player achieved this accolade after an impressive performance, achieving a perfect score in shooting and surpassing her compatriot Kendall Gretsch by 16 seconds, continuing to enhance her legend in both the winter and summer games.

Masters is among the most versatile athletes, having also excelled in Paralympic cycling during the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games, where she won two gold medals.

However, behind this athletic success lies a very difficult life story, as reported by the French newspaper Le Parisien. Masters was born in 1989 in Ukraine, hundreds of kilometers from the Chernobyl disaster site, and suffers from congenital anomalies that included six toes on each foot and webbed fingers, as well as the absence of leg bones.

Due to her challenging health conditions, her parents abandoned her as a child, leading her to grow up in an orphanage where she endured years of severe neglect and abuse.

However, her life changed when American Gay Masters adopted her and brought her to the United States, where she underwent several surgeries and later had her legs amputated, but she found in sports a way to build a new life.

She began her Paralympic career in rowing at the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games, before later excelling in cross-country skiing, biathlon, and cycling races, becoming one of the greatest athletes in the history of the Paralympic Games.