Oksana Masters: “Sport really taught me that it’s okay to take your legs away from people and still be strong”

CNN
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She now has 19 Paralympic medals in four Summer and Winter Games disciplines to her name – more than most athletes could even dream of.

But U.S. Team athlete Oksana Masters says she still has “so many things” motivating her ahead of the Paralympics – including defending the two paracycling gold medals she won in Tokyo. And that's exactly what she did on Thursday, winning her second gold medal of the Paris Games in the H5 road race after defending her H4-5 time trial title on Wednesday.

“My dream is to ignite the passion for cycling and to show what handbiking on the bike makes possible, and to develop women's cycling, especially in the USA. I would love to be there in LA,” she said after the race, looking ahead to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

“I would love to cross the finish line with the athletes on Team USA and see this legacy carried into the future,” she added.

This year, Masters has the opportunity to increase her medal tally to 20: she will compete in the mixed team relay H1-5 on Saturday.

The sport, she tells CNN Sport's Coy Wire, has sent her on a “journey of self-discovery and love.”

Born in Ukraine with significant birth defects believed to be linked to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster – six toes, webbed fingers, no thumbs and legs lacking weight-bearing bones – Masters spent the first seven years of her life in various orphanages before her American mother, Gay Masters, adopted her.

After moving to the United States, Masters had his legs amputated at the ages of nine and 14.

Since winning her first Paralympic medal in rowing in London 2012, the talented all-round athlete has collected a total of 17 medals – seven of them gold – in rowing, cross-country skiing, biathlon and cycling at six different editions of the Games.

Immersing herself in these sporting disciplines slowly helped her to accept herself.

“For me, this was a journey of loving and accepting myself and seeing my body as powerful and strong. This was not a journey that happened overnight,” she tells CNN.

“Through sports, I learned that it's OK to take my legs away from people and still be strong, feel strong and use my body in a way and see it in this unique way that I feel,” she said.

“I want people to see how I feel about it, and not [let] Society determines how I feel, just because it doesn't know and feels uncomfortable doing so.”

Masters is as resilient as she is talented – after retiring from rowing following the London Paralympics due to a back injury, she then tried her hand at cross-country skiing, taking silver and bronze at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Almost ten years later, she repeated her cycling feat in Tokyo, where she won two gold medals, less than a year after recovering from leg surgery.

“I came to America with so many scars and history was written for me. And I allowed them to define me. I let those memories be what they were. But that's not what defines you,” she tells CNN Sport.

She adds: “It's not about what you've been through. It's about what you decide to do and how you carry on and what you've accomplished. And the scars are just there to remind you how strong [you] Whether it's a scar from climbing a tree or a scar you didn't mean to have, it is – it is a symbol of power and strength.”

This year, Masters will compete in para-cycling races. The 35-year-old athlete said she is always chasing the perfect race, “where it doesn't matter where I end up on the podium until I know the result.”

“I think a lot of athletes are chasing the perfect race. And you know, it's not about the gold medal [that is] what makes a perfect race,” she adds.