Masters, Oksana

Oksana was born with congenital malformations caused by radiation ^[4] . Among them are knee hemimelia (leading to different lengths of the legs), five fused fingers on the hands (thumbs were missing) and six fingers on the feet. She was abandoned by her parents and brought up to seven years in an orphanage, where she was regularly raped ^[2] . When she was 7 years old, she was adopted by a 43-year-old single American Gay Masters, a certified speech therapist, for whom she became the only child. Soon, one leg of the girl had to be amputated below the knee, and at the age of 13 Oksana lost her second leg (amputation above the knee). Shortly before this, the family moved from Buffalo to Louisville , and Oksana began rowing in a new place. Despite the second amputation, her sports continued, and in 2010 she won the CRASH-B Sprints tournament in Boston , a well-known US simulator rowing competition, in the category for legless athletes, setting a world record ^[3] . In 2011, Masters paired with rower Augusto Perez at the American qualifying competitions for the World Rowing Championship for athletes with physical disabilities. She took second place. After that, she changed her partner and began to mate with Rob Jones , a former sapper who had lost both legs in Afghanistan a year earlier. Together with Jones, Masters won the bronze medals of the 2012 Paralympic Games and the 2013 Rowing World Cup.

At the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi, Oksana Masters won silver in the 12 km ski race and bronze in the 5 km race, and also became the 4th in the 6 km biathlon race and the 1 km ski sprint ^[5] .

At the 2018 Paralympic Games in Pyeongchang, Masters won silver in the 6 km biathlon race and bronze in the 12 km ski race.

Oksana Masters has repeatedly been in the focus of attention of the press. In 2012, American sports magazine ESPN The Magazine included her nude photos in the annual special issue dedicated to nude images of athletes ^[6] .