19 things you didn't know about Paralympic cycling champion Oksana Masters

Paralympic handcyclist Oksana Masters holds up the US flag while wearing her white Team USA cycling kit during the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

The Paris Paralympics saw Team USA Paracycling on the podium in multiple events, from Elouan Gardon - the youngest member of Team USA Paracycling at this summer’s Paralympics - snagging the U.S.’s first paracycling medal of the Games to Samantha Bosco winning gold in the women’s individual time trial C4.

In addition to those successes, one of the most well-known members of Team USA Paracycling at the Paris Paralympics this summer, 35-year-old Oksana Masters, continued to make a name for herself in the history books by winning gold in both the women’s road race H5 and women’s time trial H4-5, making her a 19-time Paralympic medalist.

Masters’ background isn’t a typical one for an elite athlete, and yet she continues to blaze new paths seemingly with every race she competes in.

Here are 19 things you didn’t know about 19-time Paralympic medalist Oksana Masters.

19 Things You Didn't Know About Oksana Masters

(Image credit: Getty Images)

1. Masters was born in 1989 in Ukraine with birth defects caused by radiation poisoning from the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown in spring 1986.
2. Masters spent seven-and-a-half years in an orphanage in Ukraine where she endured, in her words, horrible abuse before being adopted by a single mother and moving to Buffalo, New York and then Louisville, Kentucky.
3. She initially had six toes on each foot, webbed fingers, no thumbs, and was missing weight-bearing bones in her legs. After multiple surgeries in the U.S., her legs were amputated above the knee when she was 14 years old.
4. Masters originally tried adaptive rowing as a 13-year-old - at her mother’s urging, according to Masters - and that is what sparked Masters’ long and decorated career in sports as we know it today.
5. Masters immediately loved rowing, saying that it brought a “new sense of freedom and control” for her. She set her eyes on the London 2012 Paralympics with her rowing partner, Rob Jones, and together they won bronze for Team USA in the trunk and arms double skulls, mixed rowing category.
6. Masters wanted to expand her athletic prowess beyond rowing, and took to adaptive skiing after the 2012 Paralympics, saying that the transition from adaptive rowing to skiing was “easy because both sports target the same muscle groups.
7. Additionally, Masters finished fourth in the trunk and arms mixed double sculls event at the 2013 World Rowing Championships in South Korea. She then secured a third-place finish in the same event at the World Cup II in Eton, Great Britain, later that same year.
8. After only 14 months of learning how to adaptive ski, Masters qualified for Team USA for the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics in all three Nordic cross-country skiing events and all three biathlon events. She took home a silver medal in the women’s 12km sitting and a bronze medal in the women’s 5km sitting Nordic skiing events.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

9. Masters went on to achieve multiple medals in global para-Nordic skiing events such as gold medals in the 12km sitting women, 1km sprint sitting women, 5km sprint sitting women and 6km individual sitting women events at the 2017 World Championships.
10. Masters continued her dominance in para-Nordic skiing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics by winning gold medals in both the 1.5km sprint classic sitting and the 5km sitting events and a bronze medal in the 12km sitting event.
11. Masters is also an accomplished biathlete - she won silver medals in the 6km sitting and 12.5km sitting events at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics.
12. Masters suffered a back injury in 2013 and needed to find a way to cross-train while she healed, so she turned to handcycling, saying: “After trying it for the first time, I fell in love with the speeds I could reach that other sports couldn’t.”
13. She then made a significant change in her summer Paralympic Games journey by switching to focusing solely on hand cycling for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics where she won gold medals in both the road time trial H4-5 and road race H5 events.
14. Masters continued to excel in hand cycling, winning a gold medal at the 2023 World Championships in Glasgow in the road race H5 event.
15. Despite her newfound love of - and success at - handcycling, Masters continued to pursue para-Nordic skiing. At the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics, she earned silver medals in the 15km sitting, 1.5km sprint sitting and 10km sitting events.
16. At the 2024 Paris Paralympics, Masters won two gold medals, one in the women’s road race H5 and one in the women’s time trial H4-5.
17. When asked if she plans on aiming for the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics, Masters said: “My dream is to ignite the passion of cycling and show what is possible in hand cycling and grow the women’s field, especially for Team USA. I would love to be in L.A. [in 2028].”
18. Masters authored a book in 2023 about her journey from childhood to elite athlete called “The Hard Parts: A Story of Courage and Triumph.”
19. With her leg prosthetics, Masters stands at 5’8” - without them, her Instagram biography says she stands at approximately 4’0”.