News about Oksana Masters

When she takes to the start line in Paris this summer, Masters can rest assured that she's already overcome challenges far more perilous than any bike race can throw at her.

When she takes to the start line in Paris this summer, Team USA para-cyclist Oksana Masters can rest assured that she's already overcome challenges far more perilous than any bike race can throw at her. Masters, a seven-time Paralympic champion and 17-time medalist across a range of sports in both the summer and winter Games, heads to the French capital with a backstory few other athletes can rival in terms of trauma, survival and willpower. From the very start of her life the odds were stacked against her in the most cruel and devastating of manners. From the very start of her life the odds were stacked against her in the most cruel and devastating of manners. Born Khmelnitsky, Ukraine, three years after the Chernobyl disaster, Oksana was forced to grow up with physical defects induced by radiation poisoning from the city's infamous nuclear reactor.